“He Countries or ‘landers’ vikram He exceeded his mission objectives. He successfully performed a jumping experiment. On command it started the engines, climbed about 40 cm as expected and landed safely at a distance of 30 to 40 cm.”
This is what the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) states in its social network account X (formerly Twitter), where he adds: “Importance? This “go-ahead” encourages future human and sample repatriation missions.”
The Vikram lander next to that rover Pragyan are part of the Indian Mission Chandrayaan-3 in the region of the lunar south pole.
The maneuver took place this Sunday, as ISRO details in a short video recorded by the “lander,” which is observed raising a large amount of lunar dust after starting its engines, after which it easily detaches from the ground and returns and lands a few inches away.
Chandrayaan-3 Mission:
Vikram landed softly again!Vikram Lander exceeded its mission objectives. It was successfully subjected to a hop experiment.
On command it fired its engines, rose about 40 cm as expected and landed safely at a distance of 30-40 cm…. pic.twitter.com/T63t3MVUvI
– ISRO (@isro) September 4, 2023
“Meaning? This ‘go-ahead’ encourages future human and sample return missions,” the agency added, noting that all payloads and the lander ramp continued to function normally after the new moon landing.
This operation was conducted while Vikram, at the satellite’s southernmost point, was making the most of the last few hours of sunshine it needs to run its systems.
Activation of sleep mode
Before the sun sets completely in this part of the moon, ISRO puts the moon into sleep mode. Countriesas it did on Saturday with the Pragyan Explorer, in hopes that both components of its Chandrayaan-3 mission will spring back to life on September 22 with the arrival of a new dawn at the moon’s south pole.
“Vikram will be there now sleep modealthough before that, the ChaSTE, RAMBHA-LP, and ILSA payloads will conduct experiments on site at the new location, and the data is collected and received on Earth,” explains ISRO.
“The payloads are off,” he adds, “but the lander’s receivers remain on.” Vikram will “go to sleep” alongside Pragyan when the solar power and battery run out. We await your awakening around September 22, 2023.”
Chandrayaan-3 Mission:
Vikram Lander goes into sleep mode around 08:00. Is today.Before that, in-situ experiments with ChaSTE, RAMBHA-LP and ILSA payloads will be carried out at the new site. The collected data is received on earth.
Payloads are now off…. pic.twitter.com/vwOWLcbm6P– ISRO (@isro) September 4, 2023
Indian scientists’ initial expectations were low 14 earth dayscorresponds to half a lunar day, the duration of the mission during which the discoverer and lander conducted a variety of experiments to study this area of the satellite.
While Pragyan scanned the lunar soil to capture images and eventually discovered the presence of sulfur, Vikram analyzed the moon’s seismic activity, studied heat flux and near-surface plasma density, and helped further accurately measure the distance between Earth and its satellite.
The Chandrayaan-3 probe successfully landed on the moon’s south pole on Aug 23. This made India the first country to reach this region of the moon and the fourth country to land on the moon after the US, Russia and China.
Probe for exploring the sun
The final days of this mission coincide with the successful launch of the first Indian probe to explore the Sun, which launched from Earth last Saturday.
His name is Aditya-L1, and is expected to take about four months to reach its destination, a gravitationally stable point between the two celestial bodies, 1.5 million kilometers from our planet. From there, information about the outermost layers of our star is collected.
ESA makes its network of space stations with antennas in Spain, Argentina and Australia available for monitoring.
Aditya-L1 started generating electricity.
The solar panels are deployed.The first ground-based orbit-raising launch is scheduled for September 3, 2023 at approximately 11:45 am. is pic.twitter.com/AObqoCUE8I
– ISRO (@isro) September 2, 2023