Lunar orbit in a long-lasting orbit, at 28° inclination, and successfully completed its mission after one and a half years. PFS-2 was placed in a particularly unstable orbital inclination of 11°, and lasted only 35 days in orbit before crashing into the lunar surface. Lunar orbit In astronomy, lunar orbit (also known as a selenocentric orbit) is the orbit of an object around the Moon. As used in the space program, this refers not to the orbit of the Moon about the Earth, but to orbits by various manned or unmanned spacecraft around the Moon. The altitude at apoapsis (point farthest from
Orbit of the Moon this earlier orbit of about 10° to the equator to produce a present inclination of 5° to the ecliptic. It is thought that originally the inclination to the equator was near zero, but it could have been increased to 10° through the influence of planetesimals passing near the moon while falling to the earth. If this had not happened, the moon would now lie much closer to the ecliptic and eclipses would be much more frequent. The rotational axis of the Moon is not perpendicular to its orbital plane, so the lunar equator is not in the plane of its