Earlier on Friday, the Pragyan rover rolled out over the surface of the Moon and covered a distance of 8 metres, according to ISRO.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Saturday released a new video of Chnadrayaan-3’s Pragyan rover roaming around the ‘Shiv Shakti’ Point, the landing point of Chandrayaan-3, on the lunar surface.
The space agency also said that of the mission’s three objectives, two have been accomplished including demonstration of a safe and soft landing on the lunar surface and demonstration of rover roving on the moon.
It further said that the in-situ scientific experiments are underway while all the payloads are performing normally.
Earlier on Friday, the Pragyan rover rolled out over the surface of the Moon and covered a distance of 8 metres, according to ISRO. The rear wheels of the rover, having imprints of the space agency ISRO and the Indian emblem, left faint marks on the lunar surface.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today met and congratulated ISRO scientists at ISRO Telemetry Tracking and Command Network Mission Control Complex (ISTRAC) where lauded Chandryaan-3 heroes involved with the successful lunar landing.
PM Modi announced that the touchdown point of Chandrayaan 3 will be called ‘Shiv Shakti’ while the site where Chandrayaan 2 left its footprints will be called ‘Tiranga’. He also announced August 23 as the ‘National Space Day’ to commemorate Chandrayaan-3’s successful soft landing on the moon.
After a 40-day journey into space, the Chandrayaan-3 lander, ‘Vikram’, touched down on the unexplored lunar south pole on Wednesday, making India the first country to do so.
Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft’s lander module comprising the Vikram lander and the Pragyan rover made the soft landing near the south polar region of the moon at 6.04 pm, days after Russian lander Luna-25 crashed.
A follow-up mission to the 2019 Chandrayaan-2, the latest moon programme aims to achieve three objectives– to demonstrate a safe and soft landing on the moon surface, which could not be achieved during Chandrayaan-2, to demonstrate rover roving abilities on the moon surface, and to conduct in-situ scientific experiments.