Pragyan Rover Ventures Out of Vikram Lander near Moon’s South Pole

New Delhi: After the Vikram Lander of Chandrayaan-3 made a perfect landing near the South Pole of the moon, the next big move was the rolling out of the Pragyan rove.

The rover will move around to collect data about the lunar surface near the South Pole. It will transmit it to the lander which will be relayed to space agency ISRO.

The launch of the rover took place only after the dust kicked up by the touchdown of the Vikram lander dissipated. As the gravity of the moon is one-sixth of what it is on Earth, dust does not settle as fast as it does on Earth.

The rover was rolled almost a day before the time the ISRO Chief S Somnath had spoken of.

The rover will continue experiments for 14 days or a single moon day. At nightfall, the solar-powered equipment will stop functioning.

The Pragyan rover will search for traces of water in the South Pole region of the moon. Traces of water was detected by a NASA instrument aboard the ISRO’s Chandrayaan-1 probe in 2009.

Chandrayaan-3 is the first moon mission to land near the South Pole of the moon and this is the first opportunity to explore the possibility of the presence of water in the region. If water is found in the area, it will used as a source of drinking water, to cool equipment and broken down to produce oxygen. This can be a great support for the future of human space missions.