Newdelhi 3 Sep : In an effort to extend the life of the Chandrayaan-3 lander and rover, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) declared on Saturday that it has set the Pragyan rover into a hibernating condition as the Moon’s day was coming to an end.
The Chandrayaan-3 lander and rover were designed to work together for just one lunar day, or roughly 14 days on Earth. This is due to the electronics’ inability to endure the extremely low temperatures less than -120 degrees Celsius that are experienced on the Moon at night. On Earth, the nighttime can last up to 14 days. However, it’s possible that the electronics can withstand the cold and will be able to reactivate if sunlight becomes accessible. This actually occurred on a Chinese lander mission a few years ago.
ISRO chairman S Somanath, earlier in the day, had suggested that ISRO would try to extend the life of the lander and rover. ‘We are going to start the process of making them (lander and the rover) sleep in the next couple of days so that they can withstand the night,’ Somanath said soon after the successful launch of the Aditya-L1 solar mission.