CNN Indonesia
Tuesday, 26 Sep 2023 20:41 IWST
Chandrayaan-3 was about to land on the Moon, some time ago. The lunar lander experienced problems. (AP/Aijaz Rahi)
Jakarta, CNN Indonesia —
A team of experts at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is working to wake up the Moon lander and rover from the mission Chandrayaan-3 after two weeks of very cold weather on Earth’s satellite.
Chandrayaan-3 is an Indian space mission that successfully landed safely on the south pole of the Moon. This mission consists of two vehicles, namely the Vikram lunar lander and the Pragyan rover.
In a post on Twitter on Friday (22/9), ISRO revealed that it was making efforts to “to establish communications with lander Vikram and rover Pragyan to ascertain their wake conditions.”
After further attempts to wake the rover and lander on Monday (September 25), engineers still had no word from the first man-made probe duo to touch down in the Moon’s south polar region.
“Efforts to establish contact will continue,” ISRO said in its post.
However, the ISRO mission office said to BBC on Monday (25/9), the chances of waking the two “dimmed as time went by.”
“The lander and rover have so many components that may not survive the cold temperatures on the Moon,” said former ISRO Director AS Kiran Kumar.
He added that temperatures near the Moon’s south pole dropped to -200 degrees Celsius to -250. degrees Celsius at night.
“Unless the transmitter on the lander is on, we have no connectivity. It has to tell us it’s still alive. Even if all the other sub-systems are working, we have no way of knowing,” said Kumar.
An ISRO spokesperson added that efforts to contact the lander and rover were continuing.
It was turned off
Chandrayaan-3 landed near the moon’s south pole on August 23, making India the fourth country in history to land on the moon, after the US, Russia and China.
In the next two weeks, quoted from LiveScience, Pragyan explores the landing site, sending images back to Earth. Meanwhile, Vikram carried out a series of scientific experiments including measuring the temperature of the upper layer of the Moon’s regolith.
The probe also analyzed the chemical composition of lunar dust and found traces of sulfur, which may hold clues to past volcanic activity.
The Pragyan rover was put to sleep on September 2, when all its instruments were turned off. The Vikram lander followed two days later.
The mission completes its main objective. However, ISRO hopes that the two spacecraft will be able to survive the very cold lunar nights.
Chandrayaan-3 was India’s second attempt to land on the moon. The mission’s predecessor, Chandrayaan-2, crashed in 2019 due to a software error. However, the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter is still studying the moon from lunar orbit.
(team/arh)
2023-09-26 13:41:20
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