Beijing: Though China's ground control centre temporarily lost contact with the country's first lunar probe satellite during a partial eclipse, the spacecraft is now operating normally after scientists altered its orbit and turned off some facilities.

Based on the signals sent by the satellite after yesterdays eclipse, the Chang e 1 was operating as expected, Beijing News today quoted Liu Junze, of the Beijing Aerospace Control Centre (BACC), as saying.

The ground control centre changed the orbit of the solar-powered satellite to shorten the time it was out of direct sunlight to 168 minutes and switched off some facilities to save power, Liu said.

The satellite, if its orbit was unaltered, would have been out of the sun's rays for 220 minutes, he said, far exceeding the satellite's maximum power reserve.

The Earth centre had temporarily lost contact with the satellite for more than three hours, he noted.

Yesterday's eclipse occurred between 3:35 am and 6:44 am (local time), and the satellite was hidden from the solar rays about the same period. The moon s shadow, also a signal blind area, could cause a power shortage in freezing temperatures.

During the first eclipse on February 21,scientists adopted the same practise including changing the satellite orbit and switching off some equipment when it was out of direct sunlight.

The 2,350-kilogram satellite, which has been in orbit for nine months, carries eight surveying facilities to make a three-dimensional survey of the moon s surface.

The launch of the lunar probe is the first step in China's three-stage moon mission, which will lead to a landing and launch of a rover vehicle around 2012.
Source : PTI