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Two days after Chandrayaan-3 landed on the Moon, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Friday released the first video of the rover moving on the lunar surface, triggering a fresh wave of excitement.
The 30-second video shows the rover coming out of the lander and sliding down from a ramp onto the surface. Another video, released sometime later, shows how the ramp, a part of the lander, deployed itself, facilitating the rover to roll down.
ISRO said the rover had been moving around the surface, as designed.
“A two-segment ramp facilitated the roll-down of the rover. A solar panel enabled the rover to generate power,” ISRO said in a statement on microblogging site X.
“All planned rover movements have been verified. The rover has successfully traversed a distance of about eight metres. Rover payloads LIBS (LASER Induced Breakdown Spectroscope) and APXS (Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer) are turned ON,” it said.
“All payloads on the propulsion module, lander module and rover are performing nominally,” it said.
The lander module carries four scientific payloads, while the propulsion module, which is going around the Moon in orbit, has one instrument. The instruments will carry out various kinds of experiments and observations over the next two weeks. They are expected to become inactive once the lunar night descends because of lack of sunlight.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is slated to visit ISRO on Saturday morning to meet the scientists of the space agency. He is expected to spend about an hour at the ISRO Telemetry Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) where the Chandrayaan-3 mission control centre is located.
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