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India’s Chandrayaan-1 has been successfully inserted into the lunar orbit. The spacecraft has been launched into the 7,500 km x 500 km elliptical orbit around the moon.

The Lunar Orbit Insertion is a tricky manoeuvre, since the craft has to enter a region where the effects of earth’s and lunar gravity cancel out each other, and could have made the craft sailing into deep space. The spacecraft’s positioning into lunar orbit comes after an 18-day journey.

“Our heartbeats stood still in the last 20 minutes,” Nair said, reflecting the tense atmosphere that had prevailed at ISRO.

The spacecraft will enter a 100×100km orbit around the moon by November 15 and sending back data and images. The Chandrayaan is also scheduled to send a probe to the moon’s surface.