Less than 2 weeks after its historic landing close to the lunar south pole, India’s moon rover has finished its walk on the lunar surface and been switched to sleep mode, according to India’s space mission.
“The rover finishes up its tasks. The Indian Space Research Organization stated in a statement late Saturday that the area of the moon’s daylight was now “safely parked and set into sleep mode.”
The rover’s payloads have been disabled, and the lander has sent the data it collected to Earth, according to the announcement.
It was planned for the Chandrayaan-3 lander and rover to last for one lunar day, or around 14 days on Earth.
The battery is fully charged right now. The solar panel is set up to catch the light on September 22, 2023, when the next sunrise is anticipated. Keep the receiver on. The statement read, “Wishing for a successful wakeup for another round of duties.
The rover’s hunt for evidence of frozen water on the lunar surface, which would be useful for future astronaut trips as a possible source of drinking water or to produce rocket fuel, has not yet yielded any results.
The moon rover discovered many other elements and confirmed the existence of sulfur, according to the space agency’s report from last week. According to the report, the rover’s laser-induced spectroscope sensor also found silicon, iron, calcium, titanium, manganese, titanium, aluminum, and iron on the surface.
The electronics on board the Indian lunar expedition, according to the Indian Express newspaper, weren’t made to endure extremely low temperatures, particularly those below -120 C (-184 F), during the moon’s darkness. On Earth, the lunar night can last up to 14 days.
The rover has limited battery power, according to science writer and co-author Pallava Bagla of books on India’s space adventure.
The information has returned to Earth and will initially be examined by Indian experts before being examined by all scientists worldwide, he said.
The rover may or may not awaken by sunrise on the moon since the electronics malfunction at such low temperatures, according to Bagla.
The technology to create electronic circuits and components that can withstand the extreme cold of the moon doesn’t exist in India, he claimed.
India last week became just the fourth nation to accomplish this feat after the United States, the Soviet Union, and China all failed to land on the moon in 2019.
The mission’s accomplishment highlights India’s burgeoning status as a technological and space superpower and fits in with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s objective to create the image of a rising nation claiming its position among the elite nations.
At an estimated cost of $75 million, the mission started more than a month ago.
After Russia’s Luna-25, which was also aiming for the same area of the moon, spun out of control and crashed a few days prior to India’s success, the moon. It was supposed to mark the return of Russia to the moon after a 47-year hiatus.
As a result of a protracted pause in lunar study following the last Soviet flight to the moon in 1976, the failure was blamed by Russia’s president of the state-controlled space enterprise Roscosmos on a lack of knowledge.
India has been launching satellites since the 1960s, and in 2014 it was successful in placing one in orbit around Mars. Together with the United States, India is organizing its maiden trip to the International Space Station for the next year.