- By Talib Khan
- Fri, 20 Sep 2019 06:27 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
New Delhi | Jagran News Desk: India’s ambitious Moon mission ‘Chandrayaan-2’ has been halted since September 7 because of the unsuccessful landing of its Moon lander ‘Vikram’ on the lunar surface, due to which the communication between the lander and ISRO got disconnected.
However, the Orbiter is performing normally and doing its job of gathering information while orbiting the Moon. Since September 7, ISRO is trying every bit to re-establish the communication with Vikram, but till now no sign of revival can be seen.
Adding to ISRO’s worry the last hope to revive the Vikram Lander will end on Friday if ISRO remains unsuccessful in establishing a contact with ‘Vikram’ as the period of 14 Earth days or sunny days in the south pole region of the Moon--where the Vikram landed--will get over today.
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From September 21 the Moon region will enter into a lunar night which will witness extreme cold temperatures of over -240 degree Celsius, making it impossible for the lander and the rover Pragyan to get any sunlight to generate power for its working.
The lander Vikram and rover Pragyan is supposed to be functional only for 14 days from the day of their touchdown. At the start of the mission, ISRO said the mission life of the lander and the rover will be one lunar day which is equal to 14 Earth days, whereas that of the orbiter will be one Earth year.
The duration of one day of Moon is similar to 14 days of Earth. According to the astronomer, the sunlight is towards the end. Later this afternoon, the south pole of the moon will sink completely into darkness.
"Progressively, you can imagine that it becomes that much more difficult, with each passing hour, the available power on the battery gets drained out, and there won't be anything left for it to power and operate", an ISRO official was recently quoted as saying by news agency PTI.
After Friday, ISRO’s focus will shift towards the Orbiter and the data it will collect with its eight advanced instruments.
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Vikram lander, with rover Pragyan housed inside it, had lost communication with ground station on September 7 during its final descent, just 2.1 kilometers above the lunar surface.
The Rs 978 crore Chandrayaan-2 was launched on 22 July and successfully completed a course of the 45-day journey before the expected landing of its lander Vikram on the lunar surface. However, ISRO lost all communication with its lander on September 7 after its hard landing on the surface.