Chandrayaan-3's Pragyan rover has successfully rolled out of the Vikram lander. The rover came out after the lunar dust had settled down completely. Chandrayaan-3 landed on the lunar south pole on August 23, 2023, at 6:04 pm IST, making India the first country to softly land a spacecraft on the Moon's south pole.
After the Vikram lander was powered completely, the Pragyan rover came out. It took the Pragyan rover over four hours to roll out completely. Together, the Pragyan rover and Vikram lander were called the lander module. The propulsion module carried the lander module to a 100-kilometre circular lunar orbit. After this, the propulsion module and the lander module separated.
The rover is equipped with two payloads, which are the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS), and Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS).
APXS will help determine the elemental composition of the lunar soil and rocks around the landing site. The elements to be studied include magnesium, aluminium, silicon, potassium, calcium, titanium and iron.
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LIBS will conduct qualitative and quantitative elemental analysis in order to infer the chemical and mineralogical composition of the lunar surface.
The rover has a mass of 26 kilograms, a mission life of one lunar day, and a power generation capacity of 50 Watts.
Pragyan is rectangle-shaped, and has six wheels and a navigation camera.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has shared the first images of the Moon captured by Chandrayaan-3 during lunar descent. Chandrayaan-3 also captured an image of the landing site. In that image, one of the landing legs of Vikram can be seen. Chandrayaan-3 chose a relatively flat surface for landing.
The Vikram lander's Landing Imager Camera captured this image of the landing site.
The objectives of Chandrayaan-3 are to conduct in-situ scientific experiments, and develop and demonstrate new technologies required for interplanetary missions.