Chandrayaan-3: Rover mobility operations have commenced; lander module payloads turned on

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has updated on the status of the Lander Vikram and Rover Pragyan's activities on the lunar surface on Thursday. The space agency took to X to inform that all activities pertaining to Chandrayaan-3 are on schedule.

"Lander Module payloads ILSA, RAMBHA and ChaSTE are turned on today," it said.

With the rover mobility operations being commenced, other operations are also normal, it informed.


However, SHAPE payload on the Propulsion Module was turned ON on Sunday.

What are these Lander Module Payloads?

The Lander and the Rover have scientific payloads to carry out experiments on the lunar surface.

Over the next two weeks, starting today, the experiments onboard lander Vikram and rover Pragyan will be happening on all days and as much data will be collected from all instruments until the Moon’s Day lasts.

The instruments on the lander, which has a mass of 1749.86 kg including Rover, in operation include Chandra’s Surface Thermo-Physical Experiment (CHASTE). It will be responsible to carry out the measurements of thermal properties of the lunar surface near the polar region.

RAMBHA-LP- a Langmuir Probe to measure surface plasma density, a laser reflector mounted on the corner of the Vikram for accurate positioning measurement of Lander on the Lunar surface by future orbiters will also operate over the following lunar day.

ILSA - Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity is in operation to measure seismicity around the landing site and to understand the structure of the lunar crust and mantle.

Lastly SHAPE, which is also known as Spectro-polarimetry of HAbitable Planet Earth, will study the spectro-polarimetric signatures, which gives complete information about the atmosphere of a planet (in this case the Earth), in the near-infrared (NIR) wavelength range (1 – 1.7 μm).