According to the Indian Space Mission, the lunar rover has completed its walk on the lunar surface and has gone into sleep mode less than two weeks after its historic landing near the lunar south pole
From
ASHOK SHARMA Associated Press
September 3, 2023, 12:32 a.m. ET
• 3 min reading
NEW DELHI – India’s lunar rover has completed its walk on the lunar surface and entered sleep mode less than two weeks after its historic landing near the lunar south pole, India’s space mission said.
“The rover does its job. “It is now safely parked and put into sleep mode,” the Indian Space Research Organization said in a statement late Saturday, as daylight on this part of the moon comes to an end.
The rover’s payloads were turned off and the collected data was transmitted to Earth via the lander, the statement said.
The Chandrayaan-3 lander and rover were expected to operate for just one lunar day, equivalent to 14 Earth days.
“The battery is currently fully charged. The solar panel is designed to receive light at the next sunrise, expected on September 22, 2023. The receiver remains switched on. I hope for a successful awakening for another series of tasks!” the statement reads.
There was no word on the outcome of the rover’s search for signs of frozen water on the lunar surface, which could help future astronaut missions as a potential source of drinking water or to make rocket fuel.
Last week, the space agency said the lunar rover had confirmed the presence of sulfur and detected several other elements. The rover’s laser-induced spectroscopic instrument also detected aluminum, iron, calcium, chromium, titanium, manganese, oxygen and silicon on the surface, it said.
The Indian Express newspaper said the electronics on board India’s lunar mission were not designed to withstand very low temperatures of less than -120 °C (-184 °F) during the lunar night. On Earth, the lunar night also lasts up to 14 days.
Pallava Bagla, a science journalist and co-author of books on India’s space exploration, said the rover has limited battery power.
The data is back on Earth and will be analyzed first by Indian scientists and then by the global community, he said
At sunrise on the moon, the rover may or may not wake up because the electronics break down in such cold temperatures, Bagla said.
“Making electronic circuits and components that can survive the deep cold of the moon, this technology does not exist in India,” he said.
After a failed attempt to land on the moon in 2019, India last week became only the fourth country to reach the milestone, joining the United States, the Soviet Union and China.
The successful mission demonstrates India’s growing position as a technology and space leader and is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s desire to project an image of an emerging country asserting its place among the global elite.
The mission began more than a month ago and cost an estimated $75 million.
India’s success came just days after Russia’s Luna-25, aiming to target the same lunar region, entered an uncontrolled orbit and crashed. It was supposed to be the first successful Russian moon landing in 47 years.
Russia’s head of the state-controlled space conglomerate Roscosmos attributed the failure to a lack of expertise due to the long lunar research pause that followed the last Soviet mission to the moon in 1976.
India has been active since the 1960s, launching satellites for itself and other countries, successfully placing one into orbit around Mars in 2014. India is planning its first mission to the International Space Station next year in collaboration with the United States.