NEW DELHI, Sept 22: Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) made efforts on Friday to re-establish communication with rover Pragyan and lander Vikram that are stationed near the south polar region of the moon, to ascertain their wake-up condition, but did not receive any response signal.
The rover and the lander were put to sleep mode and were “safely parked” after the lunar night had set in. One day on the Moon is equivalent to 14 days on Earth.
ISRO, in its update on the Chandrayaan-3 Mission on Friday said, “No signals have been received from them. Efforts to establish contact will continue.” “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. Efforts to establish contact will continue,” ISRO said.
The space agency had earlier planned to re-establish communication on Friday. The lander and the rover were put into sleep mode on September 4 and 2 respectively. According to the mission directives, as dawn breaks and sunlight is back on the south-polar region of the Moon, the solar panels of the lander and the rover are expected to be optimally charged soon, and ISRO will try to revive them and check their health and ability to function.
“We have put the lander and rover on sleep mode because the temperature would go as low as minus 120-200 degrees Celsius. From September 20 onwards, sunrise will be going on at the Moon, and by September 22 we hope that the solar panel and other things will be fully charged, so we will be trying to revive both the lander and rover, “ISRO’s Space Applications Centre Director Nilesh Desai had said earlier.
After the historic landing, the Lander (Vikram) and the rover (Pragyan) performed different tasks on the lunar surface, including detecting the presence of sulphur and recording relative temperature.
(Manas Dasgupta)
