In early August, the Chandrayaan-3 mission filmed a stunning Moon video before landing at the South Pole, marking India's historic achievement. However, the mission encountered a setback as it lost communication during a lunar night.
Chandrayaan-3 Mission Recap
The Chandrayaan-3 mission has achieved remarkable success, with the lander accomplishing its objectives and the subsequent release of the Pragyan rover proceeding smoothly.
The mission's triumph holds great significance for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), as it marks a redemption from the disappointment of a failed lunar landing attempt during the Chandrayaan-2 mission four years earlier.
Undeterred by the previous setback, ISRO designed an improved version of the lander and made another attempt. This time, on August 23, the landing was flawless, bringing cheers of jubilation in the control room as Prime Minister Narendra Modi watched via video link. Modi described the event as a moment of pride and progress for India.
Scientific observations during the mission included temperature measurements conducted by a probe deployed from the Vikram lander. The probe recorded a significant temperature drop just a few inches beneath the lunar surface, suggesting that lunar soil is a poor heat conductor. This property could be advantageous for future lunar outposts, offering insulation from extreme surface temperature variations.
Furthermore, Pragyan rover's exploration revealed the presence of various elements in the lunar soil, including aluminum, calcium, iron, titanium, and a surprising discovery of sulfur. The higher concentration of sulfur in the polar regions may have implications for technologies like solar cells, batteries, fertilizer, and concrete.
Before entering sleep mode, the Vikram lander made a final small maneuver, rising slightly above the surface before gently landing again, resulting in a slight positional shift.
India Fails to Wake Up Chandrayaan-3
After completing their primary missions, the Chandrayaan-3 lander and rover entered sleep mode with fully charged batteries to endure the lunar night. Positioned with solar panels facing the Sun, ISRO hoped they would reawaken as the lunar night ended and the Sun rose over the Lunar South Pole.
However, ISRO anounced via X (formerly Twitter) that their engineers failed to wake up Chandrayaan-3 and have initiated efforts to rouse the lunar lander and rover from their hibernation following the two-week cold lunar night.
As of now, there has been no response from the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover, the first human-made objects to land in the moon's south polar region. ISRO stated that their efforts to establish contact would persist.
The reason for Chandrayaan-3's missed check-in remains uncertain. It is possible that both spacecraft did not survive the harsh lunar night, or their batteries were depleted due to extreme cold, necessitating recharging via their solar panels.
This situation is reminiscent of previous instances where spacecraft did not survive frigid nights on other celestial bodies, such as China's Martian rover, which failed to wake up after a severe Martian winter, likely due to intense dust storms on Mars' surface.
RELATED ARTICLE: India's Chandrayaan-3 Rover and Lander Rest as They Await the Next Lunar Sunrise
Check out more news and information on Space in Science Times.
