Nadia Farooq
24 August, New Delhi Isro announced on the social media site X, previously known as Twitter, that the moon rover of India’s Chandrayaan-3 rolled out from the spaceship to begin its investigation of the unexplored lunar surface.
India became the first nation to accomplish this feat, according to the country’s space agency, after the spacecraft made a historic landing on the south pole of the moon yesterday night.
“India conducted a moonwalk when the Ch-3 Rover scaled down from the Lander. Isro wrote on X, “More developments coming shortly.
Pawan K. Goenka, the chairman of the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre, a single-window, independent, nodal agency that operates as an autonomous agency in the Department of Space (DOS), shared the first image of the six-wheeled robotic vehicle Pragyan rolling out of Vikram.
With a mission length of one lunar day (14 days on Earth), the Lander and Rover include scientific payloads to conduct lunar surface investigations.
The “Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscope” (LIBS) and the “Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer” (APXS) are the payloads for the Rover.
To improve our knowledge of the lunar surface, the LIBS will determine qualitative and quantitative elemental analysis, deduce the chemical composition, and infer the composition of the minerals.
The lunar soil and rocks around the lunar landing site will have their elemental makeup (Magnesium, Aluminium, Silicone, Potassium, Calcium Titanium, and Iron) determined by the APXS.
President Droupadi Murmu issued a message of congratulations earlier today for the ISRO researchers working on the Chandrayaan-3 project.
Following the successful deployment of Pragyan-rover from within Vikram-lander, President Murmu tweeted on her official account on X, saying, “I once again congratulate the ISRO team and all fellow countrymen. Its departure a few hours after Vikram’s arrival signalled the completion of yet another stage of Chandrayan 3.
The message said, “I eagerly anticipate the data and analysis that Pragyan will gather and expand our knowledge of the moon, together with my fellow citizens and scientists.
The Russian lander Luna-25 crashed on the lunar surface during descent the day before the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)’s successful lunar landing.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is now in Johannesburg for the 15th BRICS Summit, joined virtually to follow the last seconds before the Vikram lander touched down.
PM Modi was spotted beaming broadly and gleefully waving the tricolour as soon as the lander made contact with the lunar south pole. By comparing these to an onboard moon reference map, the lander module was able to determine its location (latitude and longitude) by using a sequence of up-close photos of the moon that the ISRO had been releasing.
