1. What is Chandrayaan-3?
Chandrayaan-3 is India's lunar mission, which consists of a lander and a rover designed to explore and conduct experiments on the moon's surface.
2. What happened to the Vikram Lander and Pragyan Rover?
After a successful soft landing on the moon's surface on August 23, the instruments onboard the lander and rover were active for nearly two weeks. However, on September 3, when the lunar day ended, they were put into 'sleep mode.' Efforts have been made to wake them up, but as of the latest update, no signals have been received.
3. Why haven't signals been received from the lander and rover?
The extreme cold of the lunar night, which can drop to well below minus 220 degrees Celsius, could have frozen the electronic components of the lander and rover, making it challenging to reestablish communication.
4. Could ISRO have provided warmth to protect the lander and rover from the cold?
Yes, spacecraft can be protected against extreme cold in space using various methods, such as radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTG). However, in this mission, the primary objective was to demonstrate a soft landing on the moon, and adding additional features for thermal protection might have complicated the mission.
