Indian Space Research Organization has extended its wait to 14 days to establish its contact with Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram lander and Pragyan rover. As the Moon's temperature rises, scientists are clinging to hope that the Vikram lander and Pragyaan rover from the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) may restart before the next lunar sunset on October 6.
S Somnath, ISRO Chief, acknowledged that it is unclear exactly when communication with the Chandrayaan-3 equipment will be made.
The Vikram lander and Pragyan rover were attempted to be in communication with by ISRO in order to determine their wake-up status, but no signals have been received as of yet. The space agency did, however, stress that it would keep trying to make contact.
Scientists are optimistic despite the unpredictability. The likelihood of revival is anticipated to rise as the lunar day goes on and surface temperatures rise. The lander Vikram has not gone through the same testing that the rover has to endure these extremely cold temperatures. However, Somanath pointed out that there are many similarities in the designs of Pragyan and Vikram, indicating that the tests that were successful for Pragyan should also be successful for Vikram.
The instruments' batteries were completely charged prior to going into sleep mode, and their solar panels were positioned to catch light as soon as the lunar day started. The receiver was also left on so that, if necessary, the instruments could be revived and used to continue investigations for a further 14 days under the challenging circumstances.
On the other hand, ISRO is working on missions that would bring data to Earth following the success of Chandrayaan-3, India's third mission to the Moon. The hop performed on the lunar surface by the Vikram lander on September 3 was a step in that direction, according to officials.
The space agency will devise programs where samples can be returned to Earth based on experiments on the moon, ISRO official said. “There is no definitive timeline for this yet, but we are working on developing our systems in a way that it can undertake a return flight.”
