ISRO gears up to revive Pragyan Rover, Vikram Lander as dawn breaks on moon
With daylight emerging on the Moon, ISRO is preparing to try to reestablish communication with its lunar project Chandrayaan-3's solar-powered lander Vikram and rover Pragyan in order to revive them so that scientific experiments can proceed.
The lander and rover were both put to sleep earlier this month, on September 4 and 2, respectively, ahead of the lunar night falling on Earth's only natural satellite. So, if ISRO is able to revive them as the Sun rises on the Moon, information gathered from experiments that the Chandrayaan-3 payloads could conduct again would be a "bonus."
With sunlight returning to the Moon's south polar region, where both the lander and rover are located, and their solar panels expected to be fully charged soon, ISRO plans to make efforts to re-establish contact with them, evaluate their health and ability to resume functioning and attempt to revive them.
"We have put both the lander and rover on sleep mode because temperature would go as low as minus 120-200 degree celsius. From September 20 onwards, sunrise will be going on at the Moon and by September 22 we hope that the solar panel and other things will be fully charged, so we will be trying to revive both the lander and rover, "ISRO's Space Applications Centre Director Nilesh Desai stated.
"If our luck is good, we will have revival of both lander and rover and we will get some more experimental data, which will be useful for us to further do investigation of the Moon's surface. We are eagerly waiting for activity from September 22 onwards. We hope that we are lucky enough to revive both lander and rover and get some more useful data," he said.
Whatever data they get hereon would be a bonus, he added.
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- With inputs from agencies
