Bangalore, July 17 - Indian space scientists have corrected the orientation of the country's first lunar spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 after one of its sensors malfunctioned, a senior official said Friday.

'We have overcome the snag and the spacecraft is again able to look at the lunar surface while orbiting at about 200 km above the moon,' Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) director S. Satish told IANS.

The defect in the star sensor was detected over a month ago. Scientists at the satellite control centre of ISRO telemetry, tracking and command network (ISTRAC) here overcame the disorientation, using the antenna-pointing mechanism and gyroscope on board the spacecraft.

'We have succeeded in veering the spacecraft towards the moon without affecting its multiple functions and all its scientific instruments are working satisfactorily. The mission is safe,' Satish said.

The space agency's deep space network (DSN) at Byalalu, about 40 km from here, is able to receive the orientation information from the spacecraft regularly.

'Orientation of the spacecraft towards the lunar surface is critical for conducting the experiments. If it's away or disoriented, data collection will be difficult,' Satish noted.

The malfunction occurred about three weeks after Chandrayaan's orbit was raised to 200 km from 100 km with a wider swath May 19 for further studies on orbit perturbations and gravitational field variation of the moon.

'The orbit-raising exercise has enabled us to minimise the number of manoeuvres. The spacecraft has completed about 3,000 orbits around the moon, with 12 orbits a day,' Satish pointed out.

The 518 kg Chandrayaan-1 was launched Oct 22, 2008 from India's only spaceport Sriharikota, about 90 km north-east of Chennai, on board the 316-tonne polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV-C11) and inserted into the lunar orbit Nov 8.