Confident of the lander and rover coming back to life when night ends: ISRO Scientist
Chandrayaan-3 lander and rover have spent roughly half of their intended time on the lunar surface. The two are designed to last one lunar day i.e 14 days on earth. Although, there are mechanisms to spring them back to life when the sun rises again after the long night.
M Srikanth, Chandrayaan-3 mission operations director, in an interview with TOI said that the performance of Vikram and Pragyan so far and the overall health of all systems have increased hopes of the two coming back to life after the night (14 Earth days) passes.
“Our priority is to ensure that the project objective of getting scientific data for one lunar day is achieved.
We’re focusing on rover mobility and payload operations. This will continue for another seven days after which they (systems) will go to sleep when the Sun sets. So far, all margins are looking good and we are confident of the lander and rover coming back to life when night ends.
If that happens, that will be a bonus and in case that cannot be achieved, the mission is still complete,” Srikanth said.
Why systems sleep at night?
Both Vikram and Pragyan are solar-powered and are designed only to operate during sunlit periods, when the temperatures (in the polar area) are upwards of 54° Celsius.
When the Sun sets, the temperatures could go as low as -203° Celsius and the systems on the lander and rover do not get any power to stay on. “They should turn on once the sun returns provided they have survived the cold. This is especially true with all the electronic components in the lander and rover.
