NEW DELHI, Oct 6: The attempts by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to wake up the solar-powered Vikram Lander and Pragyan Rover, put on the “sleep mode,” has failed perhaps hailed the end of the Chandrayyan-3 mission.
“There won’t be any more hope of reviving. If it should have happened, it should have happened by now. There is (now) no chance at all,” some senior scientists said.
After an eventful month on the lunar surface, the Indian space agency began efforts to establish communication with the lander and rover on September 22. However, no signals have been received from them as of now.
A senior scientist said the success of Chandrayaan-3 would “benefit subsequent (missions) both in terms of knowledge and in terms of planning the activities that need to be done in that region.” “In the larger sense, what you have achieved definitely is you have reached an area (south pole) where nobody else has gone and got in-situ data of that region. And that is actually very useful information.” he said.
India scripted history on August 23 by becoming the first-ever country to touch down near the lunar south pole, and the fourth in the world to achieve soft-landing on the lunar surface after the US, the former Soviet Union, and China.
(Manas Dasgupta)
