Space travel
Hardly any hope for waking up the Indian lunar equipment
This August 27, 2023 image provided by the Indian Space Research Organization shows a crater encountered by Chandrayaan-3. photo
© Uncredited/Indian Space Research Organization/AP/dpa
At the end of August, India became the fourth country to ever make a soft landing on the moon. The lander and rover then collected data on the moon. Now the devices appear to be inactive.
The lander and rover of the Indian lunar mission “Chandrayaan-3” will most likely no longer be active. This was reported by Indian media, citing representatives of the Indian space agency ISRO. The two devices had data on them after landing Moon collected and were put into sleep mode at the end of the lunar day – on the Earth’s satellite, day and night each last 14 Earth days. The hope was that the lander and rover would become active again on the new lunar day.
“No, there is no hope of waking up,” said former ISRO chief Aluru Seelin Kiran Kumar to the Indian news agency PTI on Friday. “If it had happened, it would have happened by now. Now there is no hope.” On August 23, India became the fourth country to ever make a soft landing on the moon. Previously, only the Soviet Union, the USA and China had succeeded in this.
On a moonlit night it can reach -200 degrees
After completing the work of the lander and rover, ISRO had emphasized that they were hoping for an awakening on the next lunar day on September 22 or during the following days. On a moonlit night it could get -200 degrees or even colder, they said – a challenge for the devices. ISRO previously said that the lander and rover should always remain on the moon as “India’s lunar ambassadors”.
The unmanned “Chandrayaan-3” mission was intended to explore the little-studied southern side of the moon, with the focus, among other things, on the frozen water present there. Such ice could be useful, among other things, in future manned lunar missions. “Chandrayaan” means “lunar vehicle” in Sanskrit.