No signal yet from Vikram, Pragyan: Isro

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) said on Friday that it is continuing efforts to establish contact with the Chandrayaan-3 lander and the rover to check on their “wake-up condition”.

Isro had placed the lander and rover – Vikram and Pragyan – on sleep mode when night set in on the moon, more than two weeks ago. The idea was to keep the solar-powered lander and rover ready in the event of a restart during the next lunar day.

“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,” Isro said.

The Chandrayaan-3 lander module touched down near the lunar south pole on August 23. Vikram and Pragyan have already completed their mission life of one lunar day during which they conducted a series of scientific experiments on the lunar surface.

Minister of State for Space Jitendra Singh said the Isro team has been trying to establish contact for “the last several hours”. Singh said no signal had been received from the lander and the rover. “This could be possibly because of a prolonged spell of cold weather conditions up to -150 degrees C during the just concluded lunar night of 14 Earth days,” he said.

The payloads on board the mission have, as part of the experiments, measured the temperature of the lunar topsoil, near-surface plasma content and confirmed the presence of sulphur.