Fears for India’s Chandrayaan-3 Moon mission as lander and rover fail to wake up from sleep on ‘mysterious’ south pole
INDIA has failed to reconnect with its Chandrayaan-3 lander and rover on the Moon’s icy south pole.
It follows the pair going to sleep during the 14-day lunar night, beginning on 4 September.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) have urged today that they will continue to try and establish contact with the Chandrayaan-3 lander and rover.
In a statement on X (formerly Twitter), ISRO said: “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.”
Vikram and Pragyan were put to sleep 18 days ago with batteries fully charged and solar panels placed in line with the sun’s rays ready for the lunar sunrise.
Scientists are still trying to determine their activation conditions, after being asleep for more than half the month.
If the pair fail to wake up, India’s historic Moon mission may be dead in the water.
But the mission was not in vain.
The Vikram rover has been key to discovering two of the six necessary elements for life near the lunar south pole: sulphur and oxygen.
Former ISRO chairman Madhavan Nair said there is still a chance that the system will be operational again, despite the extremely cold temperature on the Moon’s surface.
Lunar nights can get as cold as -200 degrees Celcius.
“Vikram Lander and Pragyan Rover have been in deep sleep for almost two weeks now,” he explained to news agency ANI.
“It is almost like taking out something from the freezer and then trying to use it.
“The temperatures would have gone beyond -150 degrees Celsius.
“As the temperature rises above minus 10 degrees, a wake-up call will go and Vikram and Pragyan will rise from their sleep.”
If the pair are revived, they will have another 14 days to collect more data and lunar samples – which could lead to even more discoveries.
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