Chandrayaan-3 mission: An eminent space scientist on Friday signalled a possible end to India's third lunar mission saying that now there is no hope of revival of Chandrayaan-3's lander and rover. A S Kiran Kumar, Space Commission member and former ISRO Chairman said "No, no, there won't be any more hope of reviving. Now, if it should have happened, it should have happened by now. There is (now) no chance at all."
Efforts were made to establish communication
Earlier on September 22, ISRO had said that efforts have been made to establish communication with the solar-powered Vikram lander and Pragyan rover to ascertain their wake-up condition. As of now, no signals have been received from them. Efforts to establish contact will continue, it had said then.
Lander, rover are designed to operate for one lunar daylight period
The lander and rover were put into sleep mode, on September 4 and 2, respectively, before the sun set on the moon, hoping for their awakening at the next sunrise around September 22. The lander and the rover are designed to operate for one lunar daylight period (about 14 earth days).
According to ISRO officials, all three Chandrayaan-3 mission objectives -- demonstration of a safe and soft landing on the lunar surface, and demonstration of the rover roving on the moon and undertaking of in-situ scientific experiments on the lunar surface by its payloads and that of the lander -- have been achieved.
Experiments were performed after landing
After landing on the moon, scientific payloads of the lander and the 26-kg six-wheeled rover had performed experiments one after the other so as to complete them within 14 earth days, before the pitch darkness and extreme cold weather engulfed the Moon.
ISRO officials had said that if it was able to reestablish communication with the lander and rover, it would be a "bonus". "If our luck is good, we will have the revival of both the lander and rover and we will get some more experimental data, which will be useful for us to further do investigation of the moon surface", an official of the space agency had said.
(with inputs from PTI)
