Chandrayaan 3: ISRO yet to receive any signal from Vikram lander or Pragyan rover, efforts on
ISRO) said today that it has tried to establish contact with the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover but no signal has been received from them till now.
«Efforts have been made to establish communication with the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover to ascertain their wake-up condition. As of now, no signals have been received from them,» the space agency said today.
«Efforts to establish contact will continue,» it added.
The Chandrayaan-3 lander, 'Vikram', touched down on August 23 at the uncharted lunar South Pole making India the first country to do so.
After transversing over 100 meters on the lunar surface from the Shiv Shakti Point, the touchdown spot of the Vikram lander on the lunar surface, the Pragyan Rover was safely parked and set into sleep mode on September 2, ahead of the lunar night setting in on Earth's only natural satellite.
If ISRO is able to revive them as the Sun rises on the Moon again, information that is derived from experiments that could once again be conducted by the Chandrayaan-3 payloads would be a «bonus».
The lander and rover — with a total mass of 1,752 kg — were designed to operate for one lunar daylight period (about 14 Earth days) to study the surroundings there. However ISRO is hoping that they will come back to life when the Sun again rises on the Moon, and carry on with the experiments and studies there.
The lander touched down near the south pole of the Moon on August 23, successfully completing one of the Chandrayaan-3 mission's main objectives of soft landing on lunar surface.
