“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 post on social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
Sunday, which is the 12th day since India achieved the historic soft-landing on the lunar surface, will see both Vikram and Pragyan retire for the night, Chandrayaan-3 project director P Veeramuthuvel told TOI in an exclusive interaction.
“If we look specifically at the rover, we’ve managed to cover more than 100 meters in just 10 days, while several other missions that have lasted longer, even as long as six months, have only managed 100-120 meters,” Veeramuthuvel said. “This means the command to put the rover to sleep has been enabled and it will go to sleep only Sunday as there are some tests that need to be done,” Veeramuthuvel explained.
What if Chandrayaan 3’s rover ‘Pragyaan’ does not wake up
“Currently, the battery 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,” added the post. The post further added, “Hoping for a successful awakening for another set of assignments! Else, it will forever stay there as India’s lunar ambassador,” explaining a scenario of what happens in case the Chandrayaan 3’s rover ‘Pragyaan’ does not wake up.
On why an early sleep mode given that the designed life of the lander and rover were 14 Earth days, Veeramuthuvel said, “We cannot count the first two and last two days. The lunar day began on August 22 and our landing was almost at the end of the second day. From there, both Vikram and Pragyan have performed exceptionally to exceed our expectations. All mission objectives have been met and we will enter sleep mode tomorrow (Sunday).”
In its short life on Moon, Pragyan is reported to have completed traversing more than 100 meters as of September 2, which marked the 10th day of its deployment, which happened early on August 24, several hours after Vikram’s soft-landing on August 23.
“If we look specifically at the rover, we’ve managed to cover more than 100 meters in just 10 days, while several other missions that have lasted longer, even as long as six months, have only managed 100-120 meters,” P Veeramuthuvel, Chandrayaan-3 project director, told TOI.