After the successful deployment of Chandrayaan-3’s lander and rover on the moon, ISRO hopes that their mission life will not be limited to 1 lunar day or 14 Earth days, and they will come back to life when the sun rises again . The Moon, where experiments and research continue.
With the lander and rover deployed, the systems on it are now ready to run experiment after experiment to complete within 14 Earth days, before the darkness and extreme cold engulf the moon.
The lander (Vikram) touched down near the Moon’s South Pole at 6:04 pm on Wednesday, successfully accomplishing one of the Chandrayaan-3 mission’s stated goals of a soft landing on the lunar surface.
Earlier today, ISRO announced that the lunar rover (Pragyan) rolled off the lander, saying: “India took a walk on the moon.” The belly descended to the lunar surface, using one of its side panels as a ramp.
The lander and rover have a combined mass of 1,752 kilograms and are designed to run for one lunar solar cycle (about 14 Earth days) to study the surroundings there.
ISRO officials, however, did not rule out the possibility of their resurrection on another lunar day.
Explaining what will happen after the soft landing of the lander and the deployment of the rover, ISRO Chairman S Somnath said earlier: “After this, all experiments (with payloads on the lander and rover) will Sequentially — all of these experiments will happen after the lander’s soft landing and the rover’s deployment.” It only takes one day on the Moon, or 14 (Earth) days. As long as there is sunlight, all the systems will be powered, he said. “The moment the sun goes down, everything is pitch black and the temperature can get as low as -180C.” So there’s no way these systems will survive, and if it survives further then we should be happy that it’s resurrected and we’ll be able to work on that system again. “We’re hoping it’s going to happen that way,” he said. The rover will perform in situ chemical analysis of the lunar surface as it moves.
It will study the lunar surface with its payload APXS (Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer) to determine the elemental composition of lunar soil and rocks around lunar landing sites.
Another payload on board the rover is the Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectrometer (LIBS), which will derive chemical composition and infer mineral composition to further enhance the understanding of the lunar surface.
The south pole region of the moon is also being explored because of the possible presence of water in permanently shadowed areas around it, ISRO officials said.
The rover sends the data to the lander, which then sends it to Earth.
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