Our heart almost stopped: ISRO Chief on Chandrayaan-2 manoeuvre

Bengaluru: "Our heart was almost stopping", was how ISRO Chairman K Sivan described the tense moments when team Chadrayaan-2 attempted to inject the spacecraft into the lunar orbit on Tuesday.

As ISRO scientists started firing Chandrayaan-2's onboard liquid engine to put the spacecraft in an orbit around the Moon, Sivan said, "our heartbeat increased".

Read  | 'Major milestone,' says ISRO chief as Chandrayan-2 makes it to lunar orbit

"For 30 minutes, our heart was almost stopping," he said after the Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI) manoeuvre was completed successfully at 09:02 am as planned, using the onboard propulsion system.

But Sivan said the proposed soft-landing on the Moon on September 7 would be a "terrifying" moment as it is something ISRO has not done before, whereas LOI manoeuvre had been carried out successfully during the Chandrayaan-1 mission also.

"Now the tension has only increased, not reduced," he said while addressing a press conference.