Chandrayaan-3: India Moon lander’s reawakening unlikely as lunar night looms

A photo of the Vikram lander taken by Pragyaan rover on Wednesday

Geeta Pandey

Delhi-based BBC News

Indian space scientists claim that the likelihood of the Moon rover waking up is” remote” as a new solar night approaches.

The rover and rover had finished” all their assignments- and more ,” according to the American space agency Isro, which did not say whether more efforts would continue to communicate with it.

When a fresh solar day started on September 22, Isro had hoped that the Vikram spacecraft would awaken.

Each day and day spent on the Moon lasts just over 14 days on Earth.

On August 23, the spacecraft touched down close to the Moon’s little-explored north pole while carrying the Pragyaan vehicle in its belly. They gathered information and images for two weeks before being put into” sleep mode” at lunar nightfall.

Since they required sunlight to recharge their batteries and carry out their functions, the landing time was carefully chosen to correspond with the solar dawn.

The Indian Space Research Organization ( Isro ) initially estimated that the lander and rover had 14 Earth days of life, but they later expressed the hope that their batteries would recharge and their modules would awaken with the rising of the moon.

However, as time passed and the rover continued to send no sign, scientists told the BBC that the likelihood of it reawakening” dimming with each passing hours.”

The chances of the Vikram lander waking up are extremely distant, according to previous American space agency main G Madhavan Nair, who spoke to the BBC on Friday.

It is not made to withstand the extreme weather conditions on the Moon, where nighttime lows can drop as low as – 200C to 250C(- 328F to 418F ), he claimed.

According to Mylswamy Annadurai, the head of India’s first moon mission,” endeavors will still be made occasionally to communicate with Vikram spacecraft ,” but they must be tapped down.

We cannot maintain resources secret for an extended period of time in order to awaken the Moon rover. They must be switched to tracking Aditya L-1, India’s initial goal to examine the Sun. Aditya needs to be watched right now, and that’s where the focus will move, he said.

He continued,” We must accept that it exists and move on.”

Isro has shared photographs taken by the spacecraft, as well as regular updates on their movements and discoveries.

Additionally, it stated that the vision had accomplished all of its stated goals. The rover conducting a fly experiment on the Moon was accidental and exceeded its objective objectives, according to Chandrayaan – 3 project chairman P Veeramuthuvel.

India became the first nation to properly get a spacecraft close to the lunar south shaft with its Chandrayaan-3 mission.

After the US, the former Soviet Union, and China, it likewise joined an elite group of nations to make a soft landing on the Moon.