Chandrayaan-3 Mission: No signals received from Vikram lander and Pragyan rover, says ISRO

The space body in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, wrote, "Chandrayaan-3 Mission: Efforts have been made to establish communication with the 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."

Hyderabad: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Friday informed that as of now there have been no signals from the Vikram lander and the Pragyan rover, which are a part of the Chandrayaan-3 mission.

The space body in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, wrote, "Chandrayaan-3 Mission: Efforts have been made to establish communication with the 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."

On September 2, after putting the rover into sleep mode, the ISRO had said, "The rover completed its assignments. It is now safely parked and set into sleep mode. APXS and LIBS payloads are turned off... 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. Hoping for a successful awakening for another set of assignments! Else, it will forever stay there as India's lunar ambassador," the country's space agency had said in a post on X.

Later, Union Union Minister of State Science & Technology Dr Jitendra Singh reasoned that it could be because of prolonged spell of could weather conditions up to minus 150 degrees Celsius.

"Chandrayaan 3 Update: For the last several hours, Team #ISRO making best effort to establish contact with the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover to ascertain their wake-up condition after the sunrise on Moon. As of now, no signal has been received from them so far. This could be possibly because of prolonged spell of cold weather conditions upto -150 degree C during the just concluded lunar night of 14 Earth days. However, efforts to establish contact shall continue," Singh, also a senior BJP leader, wrote on X.

The Chandrayaan-3 mission was successfully launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota and on August 3, it was successful in soft-landing on the south pole of the moon, a rare feat which was achieved by India. Subsequently, the 26 kg six-wheeled rover descended from the lander's belly onto the Moon's surface, using one of its side panels, which acted as a ramp. India joined the ranks of United States, China and erstwhile Soviet Union.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had congratulated ISRO chief S Somanath and all the scientists, who were part of the Chandrayaan-3 project. Following the success of Chandrayaan-3, during his interaction with ISRO scientists, PM Narendra Modi had announced that August 23 would be celebrated as National Space Day.