NEW DELHI, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- Almost all the major steps with regard to the course of Chandrayaan-1, the India's first lunar spacecraft, are complete and it will switch over to normal operation in a short while, the Hindu reported Sunday.

    G. Madhavan Nair, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), told the press on Saturday that only two more instruments aboard the spacecraft had to be made operational and that might be done within a week.

    "From there onwards, only some routine operations are left and everything is going according to the plans," he said.

    The spacecraft was launched on Oct. 22 by a polar satellite launch vehicle from the Satish Dhawan space center in south India.

    Nair said that with the terrain mapping camera of the Moon Impact Probe (MIP), stereoscopic pictures of the moon would be available, which, in turn, would help to have a better understanding of the height and shape of craters on the lunar surface.

    On the ejection of the MIP from the spacecraft on Nov. 14, he said the probe hit the lunar surface within 25 minutes and 10 seconds after leaving the mother craft and approached a crater named Shackleton. "During its fall from the lunar orbit, the instrument could take approach pictures of the crater," he said.

    Nair said the ISRO was planning to launch Chandrayaan-2 in 2012,a mission in which a robot would be sent to collect samples from the lunar surface and conduct tests.