Chennai: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Monday announced that the Rover, deployed by the Lander on board the third Lunar Mission Chandrayaan-3 on the South Polar Region, came across a crater, retraces the path and was now safely heading on a new path.
ISRO said "On August 27, 2023, the Rover came across a 4-meter diameter crater positioned 3 meters ahead of its location."
"The Rover was commanded to retrace the path. It's now safely heading on a new path", ISRO posted on X.
ISRO also shared the pictures of the crater and the retraced path of Rover as captured by the Navigation camera.
The first picture showed the crater that the Chandrayaan-3 Rover encountered on August 27, 2023 as seen by the Navigation Camera.
The second image shows the path, retraced by the Chandyraan-3 Rover on August 27, 2023, as viewed by Navigation Camera onboard Rover.
Less than a week after making a soft landing on the moon, the Chandryaaan-3 has achieved two of the three mission objectives.
ISRO said "of the 3 mission objectives, Demonstration of a Safe and Soft Landing on the Lunar Surface is accomplished"
"Demonstration of Rover roving on the moon is also accomplished", it said.
"Conducting in-situ scientific experiments is underway. All payloads are performing normally", it said.
Meanwhile, ISRO also released a video of Rover roaming around the Shiv Shakti point--where Chandrayaan-3's Lander landed and christened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi--in pursuit of Lunar secrets at the South Pole region of he moon.
"Pragyan rover roams around Shiv Shakti Point in pursuit of lunar secrets at the South Pole (with a moon picture) !", it said.
It said Rover payloads LIBS and APXS are turned ON and all payloads on Propulsion Module, Lander Module and Rover are performing nominally.
ISRO also said a two-segment ramp facilitated the roll-down of the rover and a solar panel enabled the rover to generate power, while releasing a video on how the rapid deployment of the ramp and solar panel took place, prior to the roll down of the rover and heading towards sunlight.
The deployment mechanisms, totalling 26 in the Ch-3 mission, were developed at the U R Rao Satellite Centre (URSC)/ISRO, Bengaluru.
The LM made a successful soft landing on the South Polar Region of the Moon on Wednesday, marking India the first nation to achieve this feat, and the Rover was deployed from it a couple of hours later, after the dust caused by the landing, got cleared.
ISRO said "the Ch-3 Rover ramped down from the Lander and India took a walk on the moon !". (Inputs from UNI)
