The Chandrayaan-3’s rover, Pragyan, has traversed over 100 metre from the lander Vikram on the floor of the Moon.
ISRO Chairpersons S. Somanath, after the launch of the Aditya-L1, mentioned, “The lander and rover are functioning. Our team, using the scientific instruments, are doing a lot of work. The good news is that the rover has moved 100 metres from the lander.”
Mr Somnath mentioned that ISRO is more likely to begin the method of placing the rover to sleep within the coming days. “We are going to start the process of making the rover sleep in the coming one or two days because it has to withstand the night,” he defined.
The lander and the rover, with a mission life of one Lunar day (14 Earth days), have scientific payloads to hold out experiments on the lunar floor. Since its touchdown on the Moon on August 23, they’ve carried out many in-situ measurements and taken photos.
“The lander and the rover will stay on the Moon for 14 days until they get sunlight. When there is no sunlight, a small solar panel, which is on the rover, will generate power to charge the battery for the next 14 days until they get sunlight,” Mr Somanath had mentioned earlier.
Once the Sun units on the Moon, temperature can plunge beneath minus 200 degree Celsius.
“The temperature there goes down to -200 minus degrees. In such an environment, there is no guarantee that the battery, electronics will survive, but we did some tests and we get the feeling that they will survive even in such harsh conditions,” Mr Somnath had mentioned.