India’s moon rover has achieved another milestone in its Chandrayaan-3 mission by capturing the first photo of its mothership, Vikram lander, on the lunar surface. This achievement comes just a week after India made history by becoming the first country to land a spacecraft on the lunar south pole, beating out Russia, China, and the US. What’s even more impressive is that India accomplished this feat with a modest budget of $73 million, which is less than the cost of popular Hollywood space movies like Interstellar and Gravity.
As the mission reaches its halfway mark, the Pragyan moon rover and Vikram lander are racing against time to complete their groundbreaking exploration before their solar-powered batteries run out during the upcoming two-week lunar night. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) was sure to capture a glimpse of the Vikram lander through the eyes of Pragyan before their untimely demise.
ISRO shared two black and white images of the lander proudly sitting on the dust-covered lunar surface, with the rover’s navigation camera capturing the moment. One of the images showcases two of Vikram’s science sensors deployed on the lunar surface, including the Chandra’s Surface Thermophysical Experiment (ChaSTE) and the Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity (ILSA).
The Pragyan rover has already made significant scientific discoveries during its exploration. It is the first machine to find chemical elements on the moon’s south pole “in situ,” meaning it detected them in their actual location on the lunar surface instead of from a distance by an orbiter. So far, the rover has recorded evidence of sulphur, aluminium, calcium, iron, chromium, titanium, manganese, silicon, and oxygen, with the search for hydrogen currently underway.
This discovery holds crucial implications for researchers and astronauts. Sulphur, often bonded to important metals like iron and nickel, could potentially be used as ores by future astronauts to sustain life and work on the moon. The distribution and abundance of sulphur on the moon are still largely unknown, shedding light on how the moon evolved and the composition differences among its various rock layers.
ISRO has been actively sharing updates and breathtaking photos of the lunar south region throughout the Chandrayaan-3 mission. However, the mission itself is relatively short, with the lander and rover’s instruments expected to remain active for just one lunar day, equivalent to 14 Earth days, before losing power. After this period, they will become inactive on the moon, potentially leaving the door open for future manned missions to recover their parts for reuse.
Although India is the fourth country to successfully land a craft on the moon, it outshone the competition by achieving this feat at the lunar south pole, where Russia had previously failed. China and the US are also in the race to reach the moon’s south pole, with China’s Chang’e 7 mission planned for 2026 and NASA’s Artemis III mission aiming to land the first woman and person of color on the moon by 2025.
India’s aerospace program has steadily grown since its first lunar orbit probe in 2008 (Chandrayaan-1). With a comparatively low-budget approach, India has been able to keep costs down by adapting existing space technology and leveraging highly skilled engineers who earn considerably less than their foreign counterparts. India’s achievements, like putting a satellite into Mars’ orbit in 2014, have set the stage for future missions, including a three-day manned mission into Earth’s orbit scheduled for next year and the collaborative Chandrayaan-4 mission with the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) tentatively set for 2025 or 2026, which also aims to land at the moon’s south pole but have a longer lifespan.
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