Chandrayaan-3 Landing Highlights: Vikram Lander To Study Lunar Quakes, Pragyan Rover's Experiments To Help Future Crewed Missions
Chandrayaan-3 Moon Landing Live: Chandrayaan-3’s Pragyan rover successfully rolled out of the Vikram lander over four hours after the historic touchdown on the lunar south pole.
Background
Chandrayaan-3 Moon Landing Live: Chandrayaan-3 successfully soft-landed on the lunar south pole on August 23, 2023, at 6:04 pm IST, making India the first country to achieve a soft landing on the Moon’s south pole. Over four hours after the historic touchdown, Chandrayaan-3’s Pragyan rover successfully rolled out of the Vikram lander. While the lander will remain fixed in its position, the rover will explore the lunar surface. Both the lander and the rover will perform experiments on the Moon for 14 days.
Chandrayaan-3 has shared images of the Moon captured during lunar descent, and also an image of the landing site. The landing site’s image was captured by Vikram lander's Landing Imager Camera. Chandrayaan-3 is able to share images with Earth because of an enhanced communication network facilitated by Chandrayaan-2’s orbiter, Chandrayaan-3’s propulsion module, and the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO’s) Deep Space Antenna.
ISRO has said that Chandrayaan-3 chose a relatively flat region on the lunar surface for landing.
The lunar south pole is a treasure trove of scientific secrets and cosmic mysteries, which is why ISRO chose this as the landing site.
After the automatic landing sequence was initiated, powered descent began. The ‘15 minutes of terror’ before lunar touchdown went smoothly for Chandrayaan-3.
Chandrayaan-3 will study the lunar ice reserves, measure seismic activities, and analyse the elemental and mineralogical composition of lunar soil and rocks. The payloads will also study the structure of the lunar crust and mantle, and the plasma environment.
The lunar mysteries unravelled by Chandrayaan-3 can help humans prepare for future crewed missions to the Moon and beyond. Studying the lunar ice reserves will allow scientists to determine how these could be used to extract water, oxygen and fuel in the future.
Chandrayaan-3 will operate on the Moon for 14 days, and will remain there even after its mission life is over.
Chandrayaan-3 Landing Highlights: Vikram Lander To Study Lunar Quakes, Pragyan Rover's Experiments To Help Future Crewed Missions
Chandrayaan-3 Vikram lander will study lunar quakes, and measure the thermal properties of the lunar surface. The experiments performed by the Pragyan rover will help future space exploration missions, according to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
Chandrayaan-3 Landing Live: Success Of This Mission Is A Success Of The Entire Humanity, Tweets PM Modi
Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted Thursday that the success of Chandrayaan-3 is a success of the entire humanity. In that tweet, he thanked the president of the United Arab Emirates, His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, for his wishes on the success of Chandrayaan-3.
Glad to speak with my brother, President of the UAE, His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Thank him for his warm wishes on the India’s successful Chandrayaan-3 Mission. Success of this Mission is a success of the entire humanity. @MohamedbinZayed
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 24, 2023
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