BENGALURU: A few hours after Chandrayaan 3 recorded history on Wednesday at 6.04 pm with its lander Vikram soft-landing near the south pole to be the first ever to do so, the 26-kg, six-wheeled rover Pragyaan was deployed as it rolled out on the lander’s ramp to the lunar surface, with ISRO saying “India took a walk on the Moon”.
This marked the beginning of the 14-day mission to explore the lunar south pole environs to relay back valuable inputs — the first mission to do so. It will provide space scientists a much better understanding of the region that is being eyed for future human bases on the Moon.
“All activities are on schedule,” ISRO said on Thursday evening. Various payloads onboard Vikram and Pragyan were found to be in a good condition after the 3.84 lakh km journey, besides the distance covered during the multiple orbits around Earth and the Moon, before achieving the landing.
ISRO on platform X stated, “All systems are normal. Lander Module (LM) payloads ILSA (Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity), RAMBHA (Langmuir Probe) and ChaSTE (Chandra’s Surface Thermo-physical Experiment) are turned on today. Rover mobility operations have commenced.” Pragyaan took its first “moon walk” on the lunar south pole. The activation of the rover’s two payloads, Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS) are still awaited.
ISRO Chairman S Somnath had said that after the powered descent and the touchdown of the lander, all the experiments of Vikram and Pragyaan would take place one after the other when the lander’s ramp would be deployed and the rover rolls out.
Module sends data to Deep Space Network
President Droupadi Murmu congratulated the ISRO team on its successful deployment of Pragyan. “It’s rolling out a few hours after the landing of Vikram marked the success of yet another stage of Chandrayaan 3. I look forward with excitement, alongside my fellow citizens and scientists, to the information and analyses that Pragyan will acquire and enrich our understanding of the moon,” she said on X.
ISRO said the payload on the propulsion module — which gave Vikram-Pragyaan the ride from launch on July 14 until their separation on August 17 — was activated on August 20. The propulsion module continues to be in a 100km x 100km orbit around the Moon. After the lander/rover separated from it, the propulsion module’s payload, the Spectro-polarimetry of Habitable Planet Earth (SHAPE), has been studying the Earth’s atmosphere from orbit and measuring variations in polarization from the clouds on Earth. It will accumulate signatures of exoplanets for earth-like features for human habitability in the future. The propulsion module is sending data to the Deep Space Network centre at Byalalu near Bengaluru.
The mission has been planned for 14 days when the Sun shines on the lunar south pole, and the systems will be shut off after the lunar sunset. However, ISRO scientists hope to revive the lander and rover when the next lunar day begins and their solar panels get charged for further operations. ISRO considers this second inning of Vikram and Pragyaan as a “bonus” if the solar panels do get adequately charged on the second lunar day.
EXCITING NEWS, SAYS PREZ
President Droupadi Murmu congratulated ISRO for the successful deployment of Pragyan. “I look forward with excitement... to the information and analyses that Pragyan will acquire and enrich our understanding of the moon,” she said