ISRO made history by making a soft landing on the Moon’s South pole on August 23. Since then, ISRO continuously shared detailed information on the Chandrayaan-3 mission. On September 04, ISRO shared further details of the Mission and said Vikram exceeded its mission objectives. In a recent experiment, ISRO again tested the engines of Vikram Lander which successfully underwent a hop experiment. As per ISRO, Vikram Lander’s ‘hop experiment’ holds significance for further return and human missions.
Explaining the manoeuvre, ISRO said, “on command, it fired the engines, elevated itself by about 40 cm as expected and landed safely at a distance of 30 – 40 cm away”.
In their X post, the Indian space agency further explained that this “kick-start” manoeuvre aids in studying future sample returns and human missions.
“All systems performed nominally and are healthy. Deployed Ramp, ChaSTE and ILSA were folded back and redeployed successfully after the experiment,” the post added.
Pragyan Rover traversed over 100 meters on the Moon’s surface and carried out several operations. Among the findings made, the temperature profile of Moon was checked and traces of Sodium were detected.
For now, Chandrayaan-3’s rover Pragyan has been put into sleep mode after it completed all its assignments. Notably, ISRO launched its first ever solar mission ‘Aditya-L1’ from Sriharikota on September 02.
