“India has taken a walk on the moon,” the country’s space agency reported on its networks. The Pragyan, a six-wheeled robotic vehicle one meter long and weighing about 30 kilograms, fell down the ramp of the Vikram lander and rolled a few meters above the satellite’s surface. It is the first time in history that a mobile vehicle has traveled through an area near the moon’s south pole that has become the new promised land of space exploration. According to the head of India’s space agency, the rover began exploring the surface after charging its battery and conducting experiments to prepare for new challenges. Both Vikram and Pragyan are designed to run on solar powered batteries.
“The rover successfully covered a distance of about 8 meters,” he said. has announced The agency later added that its tools were “activated.” “All propulsion modules, lander and rover payloads are working as expected.” This makes it the third nation to put a device on the moon.
Yesterday, after 20 minutes of “terror,” the Chandrayaan-3 mission managed to slow its dizzying orbital speed of more than 6,000 kilometers per hour until it very slowly touched down on the satellite’s surface. Everything happened automatically and without the possibility of correction from Earth. This is the first ship to reach this area, and India is the fourth country to reach the moon after the United States, Soviet Russia and China. This impressive technological achievement makes the Asian country a space power that can make history. The space leaders of the United States and Europe yesterday celebrated the triumph of India, which defeated Russia in this new race to the moon after the failure of the Luna 25 probe.
The main goal of this mission, which cost only around 70 million euros, was to demonstrate a soft landing on the moon’s inhospitable south pole. But both the Vikram module and the Pragyan rover have instruments that can analyze the chemical composition of the terrain and conduct important experiments to better understand the presence of water in this area of the moon. The scientific work of this mission will also leave many unanswered questions due to the limitations of its instruments, as explained by EL PAÍS Santosh Vadawale, leader of one of the Chandrayaan-3 experiments.
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“The main scientific goals are to understand the thermal and physical properties of the lunar surface at the landing site,” he says. “We also want to study the moon’s exosphere, which will happen with the lander’s instruments, and understand the chemical properties of the surface around the landing site, which will happen with the rover’s instruments.” It should be noted that none of these instruments designed to directly confirm the presence of water and is also not expected to be water in the landing area.”
The spacecraft began operations shortly after landing on the moon, after the dust that had been thrown up had settled. After checking that everything was working properly, a ramp was deployed about four hours later, down which Pragyan finally descended – wisdom in Sanskrit – who has the autonomy to taxi a few hundred meters around the landing point. It moves at a speed of one centimeter per second.
This rover carries two scientific instruments on board to analyze the chemical composition of the terrain. One of them fires a powerful beam of laser light to break the bonds and detect up to 16 different elements, including oxygen and hydrogen that make up water.
Chandrayaan-3 landed at 70 degrees south latitude. The equivalent on Earth would be reaching an Antarctic base. Moonwater will be vital for future inhabited colonies and later serve as a resource for rocket fuel for travel to Mars and beyond, according to the plans of the United States and its western allies, including Europe.
India has approved a space plan designed to encourage companies to get involved in exploring the moon and exploiting its resources. The country, led by Narendra Modi, has also just signed the US-sponsored Artemis Accords, which create a common framework for exploring the moon and harnessing its resources. This rapprochement of India with the United States and its partners is significant as it leaves the other great giant in this space race, China, somewhat more isolated. “We can all strive to reach the moon and beyond,” said President Modi, whose country recently became the world’s most populous country ahead of China, after the successful moon landing.
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