Chandrayaan-3: All eyes are on Chandrayaan-3 as efforts are made to make contact with the lander Vikram and the rover Pragyan on Chandrayaan-3. The Vikram lander and Pragyan rover were contacted to determine their wake-up status, but as of right now, no signals have been received, according to an update published by ISRO yesterday. The space agency did, however, stress that it would keep trying to make contact.
Vikram’s Historic Landing and Pragyan’s Exploration
The Chandrayaan-3 lander, named “Vikram,” made India the first country to land on the unexplored lunar South Pole on August 23 after a 40-day voyage into orbit. On September 2, the rover Pragyan was securely parked and put into sleep mode after travelling more than 100 metres on the lunar surface from the Shiv Shakti Point, the location of the lander Vikram’s touchdown. The next crucial step, according to former ISRO scientist Tapan Mishra, is to confirm the existence of water. “There was a lesser induced spectroscopy instrument. It has shown us all the expected metals there. It has also shown us the presence of oxygen there, but we are looking for water. The oxygen can come from the breaking of any other silicon material which is actually the basis of all the rocks anywhere in the universe, also it can come from the breaking up of water. But if we could detect hydrogen there, detecting the presence of hydrogen would conclusively prove that there is water because hydrogen is never part of any other compound. So in that case we will be able to conclusively prove that there is water there. We have remote sensing-wise shown the presence of water. Now physically also we will able to show,” he added.
Awakening Vikram and Pragyan from Lunar Deep Freeze
“Vikram Lander and Pragyan Rover have been in deep sleep for almost two weeks now. It is almost like taking out something from the freezer and then trying to use it. The temperatures would have gone beyond -150 degrees Celsius,” ISRO Chairman Madhavan Nair told ANI. “The solar heat will warm up the instruments and also recharge the batteries. If both these conditions are successfully met, there is a fairly good chance that the system will be operational again,” he added. The Chandrayaan-3 rover and lander modules were placed to sleep after conducting experiments on the moon from August 23 to September 4 in an effort to survive the extremely chilly environment at the south pole of the moon.
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