2023-08-25 23:58:48
NEW DELHI — The rover launched to the Moon by India continued its mission on Friday, days after the historic moon landing that saw the Indian probe touch down near the South Pole of Earth’s natural satellite earlier this week .
The Chandrayan-3 rover is expected to conduct experiments on the moon for 14 days, including an analysis of the mineral composition of the lunar surface, the Indian Space Research Organization (OIRS) said.
“The rover successfully traveled a distance of about eight meters,” OIRS said on Friday. All payloads of the propulsion module, the landing module and the rover are functioning nominally.
The device will also study the Moon’s atmosphere and seismic activity, OIRS President S. Somnath said.
“These experiments will pave the way for further scientific investigation of the availability of oxygen and hydrogen on the surface of the Moon and may give us a direct or indirect answer as to whether there was life. on the Moon,” said Indian Minister of Science and Technology Jitendra Singh, quoted by the Press Trust of India agency.
Pallava Bagla, who has co-authored several books on Indian space exploration, explained that the rover travels at low speed for safety reasons, to minimize shock and damage to the vehicle on rough surface and when comes the time to overcome obstacles. Battery power is also limited.
On Thursday, Somnath said the lander touched down near the center of the 4.5 kilometer wide area that had been targeted. “It landed less than 300 meters from that point,” he said.
After failing to land on the moon in 2019, India on Wednesday joined the United States, the Soviet Union and China as the fourth country to accomplish the feat.
The success of this mission highlights India’s position as a new technological and space power and corresponds to the image that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is trying to project: that of a country on the rise that confirms its place among the global elite.
The mission began more than a month ago at an estimated cost of US$75 million. Mr. Somnath has already indicated that the next step for India would be to attempt a manned lunar mission.
Many countries and private companies are interested in the South Pole region of the Moon because its permanently shadowed craters could contain frozen water.
If true, these water sources could serve as a potential source of drinking water or even rocket fuel for future astronaut missions.
India’s achievement came just days after Russia’s Luna-25 rocket, which was targeting the same lunar region, crashed.
The head of Russian space company Roscosmos attributed the failure to a lack of expertise due to the long hiatus in lunar research that followed the last Soviet mission to the moon in 1976.
Active since the 1960s, India has launched satellites for itself and for other countries. It also put one in orbit around Mars in 2014.
India plans to conduct its first mission to the International Space Station next year, in collaboration with the United States.
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