Hoping to extend the life of the Chandrayaan-3 lander and rover, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Saturday said it had put Pragyan rover in an hibernation mode as the daylight time on Moon is coming to an end.
“The Rover completed its assignments. It is now safely parked and set into Sleep mode. APXS and LIBS payloads are turned off. Data from these payloads is transmitted to the Earth via the Lander,” ISRO said in a tweet.
ISRO said the Pragyan rover, a critical part of the Chandrayaan 3 mission, has successfully traversed 100 meters on the Moon’s surface. It is to be noted Lander Vikram and Rover Pragyan, the two pivotal components of the Chandrayaan-3 mission, are in the final leg of their Lunar expedition. ISRO has planned to put them into hibernation, a process more commonly known as ‘sleep’ mode.
The Chandrayaan -3 lander and rover were expected to operate only for one Lunar day, which is equivalent to nearly 14 days on Earth. That is because the electronics are not designed to withstand very low temperatures, less than -120 degrees Celsius, during the nighttime on the Moon.
The nighttime too extends for as long as 14 days on Earth. But there is a possibility that the electronics are able to survive the low temperatures and are able to power themselves again once the sunshine is available. In fact, this happened on one of the Chinese lander missions a few years ago.
ISRO chairman S Somanath, earlier in the day, had suggested that they would try to extend the life of the lander and rover. “We are going to start the process of making them (lander and the rover) sleep in the next couple of days so that they can withstand the night,” Somanath said soon after the successful launch of the Aditya-L1 solar mission.
By evening that process had already been set in motion. “Currently, the battery (on the rover) is fully charged. The solar panel is oriented to receive the light at the next sunrise expected on September 22, 2023. The receiver is kept on,” ISRO added.
“Hoping for a successful awakening for another set of assignments! Else, it will forever stay there as India’s lunar ambassador,” it tweeted. Chandrayaan-3 had landed on the Moon on August 23, at the dawn time on Moon.
The lunar daytime would continue till around September 6. But the lander and rover are being planned to be put on hibernation a couple of days before that. Somanath also said the rover had so far traversed a distance of 100 metres on the lunar surface.
