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A DAY after the historic lunar landing by Chandrayaan-3, instruments on board the spacecraft began working and the rover took a “walk” on the Moon, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said on Thursday.
Communication links between the lander and the rover have been established and the first images of the rover have been captured, said sources. While some sources said the images would not be released until the completion of a “key event”, others said the picture quality was “not good” and “new images” were awaited.
ISRO released a video, taken by the Horizontal Velocity Camera on the lander, showing the last two minutes of the descent, just ahead of the touchdown on Wednesday evening.
“All activities are on schedule. All systems are normal. Lander module payloads ILSA, RAMBHA and ChaSTE are turned ON today. Rover mobility operations have commenced. SHAPE payload on the propulsion module was turned ON on Sunday,” ISRO tweeted on Thursday evening.
Earlier in the day, ISRO informed the country that the rover had moved out of the lander and roamed around on the Moon overnight. “The Ch-3 (Chandrayaan-3) rover ramped down from the lander and India took a walk on the Moon,” it said.
Establishment of communication links between the rover and the lander is a key step in transmitting data gathered by the instruments, between the two of them, and with the ground stations on Earth.
“The communication between the rover and lander is established but the first pictures will not be released until a key event is completed,” said a senior scientist involved with the operations of Chandrayaan-3 mission since the landing on the lunar surface. Officials did not specify the nature of the event being awaited.
Other sources associated with ISRO said the first image that was captured of the rover was not of good quality and efforts were on to obtain better quality images that can be released for public viewing.
“The picture quality has not been good. It is linked to the complexity of conducting activities on the Moon. Some efforts are on to correct this and new images are likely to become available soon,” an official said. Scientists indicated that good quality pictures may become available only by Saturday.
The rover had emerged from the Lander Module about four hours after the landing at 6.04 pm Wednesday. The delay was to allow the dust, created by the landing, to settle down.
The rover module carries two scientific instruments – the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer to study the elements present on the surface, and the Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscope which uses a different method to analyse the chemical make-up.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Centre (ISTRAC) on Saturday morning to meet and congratulate the scientists. He had joined the mission’s control room at the time of the landing on Wednesday through a video link from Johannesburg where he is attending the BRICS Summit. He also spoke to ISRO Chairman S Somanath on the phone.
Karnataka Chief Minister K Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar visited ISRO separately on Wednesday and Thursday respectively. The Karnataka government has announced its intention to felicitate the ISRO chief and 500 other scientists involved in the lunar programme. While an event is being planned at the Vidhan Soudha, the State Assembly, the date has not been finalised.
“After the US, Russia and China, we are the fourth nation to land on the moon. We should congratulate ISRO for this feat. Scientists have toiled day and night for this success. About 1,000 scientists were involved in the mission, of which about 500 are stationed in Bengaluru,” Siddaramaiah said.
