India’s lunar ‘ambassador’ is put to sleep on Moon: ISRO announces
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New Delhi: It has been a quite a journey for Chandrayaan-3, thousands of miles away from Earth.
After days of moving around on lunar surface, doing some enlightening researches alongside, the Pragyan rover has been put into sleep mode.
The rover has been safely parked and put into sleep mode, ISRO said in a post on X today.
‘Currently, the battery is fully charged. The solar panel is oriented to receive light at the next sunrise expected on September 22, 2023. The receiver is kept on,’ ISRO said.
The space agency is hopeful of ‘successful awakening for another set of assignments. Else, it will forever stay there as India's lunar ambassador’.
The 26-kg, six-wheeled, solar-powered rover Pragyan studied lunar soil and rocks in the south region where Chandrayaan-3 landed.
ISRO said payloads on the rover including APXS and LIBS payloads have been turned off and data gathered is transmitted to Earth.
The former is for studying composition of soil and the later was meant to identify elements including sulphur alongside others such as aluminium, silicon, calcium and iron
The Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS) has identified the presence of sulphur in the lunar soil.