The Orbit of Chandrayaan-1 Raised to 200 km

19 May 2009

After the completion of all major mission objectives, the orbit of Chandrayaan-1 — which had been maintained at 100 km above the lunar surface since November 2008 — was raised to 200 km. The orbit-raising manoeuvres were carried out between 03:30 and 04:30 UTC on 19 May 2009.

The higher altitude enabled further studies of orbit perturbations and gravitational field variation of the Moon, and allowed imaging of the lunar surface with a wider swath. It was later revealed that the change was also an attempt to keep the spacecraft's temperature down: conditions at 100 km were hotter than the pre-mission assumption of about 75 °C, and subsystem problems had started to surface.

Source: Wikipedia — Chandrayaan-1