Vikram Lander, Pragyan rover fate hangs in balance as ISRO looks to bring Chandrayaan-3 mission back to life

ISRO is desperately looking to bring Chandrayaan-3 mission back to life. Both its assets on the Moon, Vikram Lander and Pragyan Rover are in sleep mode and they are not responding to orders from Earth.

ISRO tried waking up Vikram Lander and Pragyan Rover from their sleep mode yesterday on 22 September, but could not do so and therefore, postponed the next attempt to today.

ISRO will again try to establish communication with the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover to check their operational status. It may well be that both are dead where they stand on the Moon. 

ISRO, via the Chandrayaan-3 mission, successfully achieved the impossible by landing Vikram Lander and Pragyan Rover on the Moon and they functioned for 14 days.

When the lunar night came on the moon, ISRO put both the lander and rover to sleep as, during this period, they would not be able to recharge their batteries in the absence of sunlight.

ISRO informed in a post on X platform, “Efforts have been made to establish communication with the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover to ascertain their wake-up condition." 

ISRO then added, "As of now, no signals have been received from them. Efforts to establish contact will continue."

ISRO is still hopeful to regain contact with the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover.

Suvendu Patnayak, a former space scientist from Bhubaneswar, provided insights into the Chandrayaan-3 mission.He said that the mission was designed to operate for 14 days because of the extreme lunar nighttime temperatures, which drop to around -200 degrees Celsius.

 Patnayak explained that it is quite difficult for a few electronic components to work in such extreme temperatures.

Both the rover and lander were placed in sleep mode in early September after conducting various lunar experiments.

The Chandrayan-3 mission has achieved a number of successes and among them was finding the presence of Sulphur in the lunar surface near the south pole.

If the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover can be reactivated successfully, It will be a great achievement for ISRO. In fact, it would be a miracle.