Science
Chandrayaan-3: Rover Pragyan To Click The First Pictures Of Lander Vikram On Moon Today
Screengrab from ISRO's footage of Pragyan rover rolling out on the lunar surface
ISRO chief S Somanath has confirmed that Pragyan rover will turn today and take first pictures of the Chandrayaan-3's Vikram lander.
Briefing Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the mission's progress during his visit to the ISRO Centre in Bengaluru on Saturday (26 August), the ISRO chief said that the images from the lander takes a lot of time to reach earth because of data-rate and processing.
"The rover is almost out of the field of view (of the lander camera). It will turn in the day today and look at the lander and take more pictures," Somanath informed PM Modi.
Earlier on Thursday (25 August), ISRO shared footage of the Chandrayaan-3 rover exiting the lander module using a ramp and rolling out on to the lunar surface. It was captured by the lander imager camera.
ISRO reported that the Pragyan rover has traversed a distance of about 8 metres on the surface of the Moon.
For a reference, that would be around the distance covered by two average-sized cars parked back to back.
Further, the space agency said that all planned rover movements have been verified and the rover payloads are turned on.
The rover is equipped with two payloads for carrying out scientific experiments, namely the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) and the Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS).
Whereas the APXS will try to determine the elemental composition of the lunar soil and rocks around the landing site, the LIBS will be responsible for qualitative and quantitative elemental analysis, deriving the chemical composition, and inferring the mineralogical composition.
The LIBS will come into play through the spectroscopic study of gases emitted from the surface of the Moon after it is melted using lasers.
The work with the APXS, on the other hand, will involve shooting alpha particles on to the lunar surface and creating emissions, and then studying the chemical composition.
The rover will specifically look for the elements magnesium, aluminium, silicon, potassium, calcium, titanium, and iron.
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