ISRO Will Try to Wake Up Vikram Lander, Pragyan Rover on Sept 23

New Delhi: After 14-day long night, a new lunar day began on Thursday raising hopes that Chandrayaan-3’s Lander Vikram and Rover Pragyan may become functional again.

The ISRO scientists will try to re-establish communication with Chandrayaan-3’s solar-powered lander Vikram and rover Pragyan on Saturday. The revival attempt scheduled on Friday was deferred to Saturday for some unknown reasons.

“Earlier we planned to reactivate the (Pragyan) rover and (Vikram) lander on the evening of 22nd September, but due to some reasons we will now do it tomorrow on 23rd September. We have a plan to take out the lander and rover from the sleep mode and reactivate it…We had a plan to move the rover to almost 300-350 metres. But due to some reasons…the rover has moved 105 metres there,” Director of Space Applications Centre, Nilesh Desai said.

Chandrayaan 3’s Lander Vikram and Rover Pragyan were put to sleep on September 2.

It will not be an easy task to revive Chandrayaan3 as the temperature on Moon during a lunar night plummets to as low as -208 degrees F. After spending 14 days in such cold temperature, it would be difficult for instruments of Vikram and Pragyan to start functioning again.

Yet ISRO will make a try to restart Chandrayaan 3’s lander module and rover.