Pragyan rover traverses 8 metres on lunar surface

ISRO on Friday said the Chandrayaan-3 rover, ‘Pragyan’, has successfully traversed a distance of about eight metres and its payloads have been turned on. “All planned rover movements have been verified. The rover has successfully traversed a distance of about 8 metres. Rover payloads LIBS and APXS are turned on,” the space agency said in a post on X. “All payloads on the propulsion module, lander module, and rover are performing nominally,” it added. The Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) is aiming at deriving the chemical composition and infer the mineralogical composition of the lunar surface. The Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS) will attempt to determine the elemental composition (Mg, Al, Si, K, Ca, Ti, Fe) of lunar soil and rocks around the lunar landing site.