The Vikram lander and the Pragyan rover of Chandrayaan-3, who are currently in “sleep mode” near the Moon’s South Pole after having completed their set tasks, are expected to awake on Friday (September 22).
“The Chandrayaan-3 landed successfully and it worked for almost 14 days. It was designed to work for 14 days (on the moon). Its life period was only 14 days because the moon’s temperature falls down to (-) 250 degrees during the (lunar) nighttime. So it worked during the sun hours or daytime and during that it had already given all the data (it was supposed to),” said Bhubaneswar-based space scientist Suvendu Patnayak. Patnayak recently superannuated as the deputy director of Pathani Samanta Planetarium in Bhubaneswar. “It is very difficult for few electronic components to work in such a huge range of temperature. So it was expected it would not work after 14 days…But a few scientists are very hopeful that it may work again. So if it works again, it will be a boon for us and we will perform the same experiments again and again,” Patnayak added.