Chandrayaan 3: Pragyan rover encounters 4-metre diameter crater on moon

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Monday said that the Chandrayaan-3’s Pragyaan rover came across a 4-meter diameter crater positioned 3 meters ahead of its location on the lunar surface yesterday.

The space agency while sharing the images on X (formerly Twitter), said, “On August 27, 2023, the Rover came across a 4-meter diameter crater positioned 3 meters ahead of its location. The Rover was commanded to retrace the path. It’s now safely heading on a new path.”

ISRO said that the rover is now safely heading on a new path. Earlier on Sunday, ISRO said that of the Chandrayaan-3’s mission’s three objectives, two have been accomplished including demonstration of a safe and soft landing on the lunar surface and demonstration of rover roving on the moon.

It further said that the in-situ scientific experiments are underway while all the payloads are performing normally.

The Chandrayaan-3, for the first time ever in the history of world space science, profiled the soil of the south pole of the moon, its temperature variation up till 10cm beneath the surface.

ISRO shared a graph on the variation of the moon’s soil temperature at various depths. “ChaSTE (Chandra’s Surface Thermophysical Experiment) measures the temperature profile of the lunar topsoil around the pole, to understand the thermal behaviour of the moon’s surface. It has a temperature probe equipped with a controlled penetration mechanism capable of reaching a depth of 10 cm beneath the surface. The probe is fitted with 10 individual temperature sensors,” it said.

The space agency had earlier shared the visuals of Pragyan rover roaming around the ‘Shiv Shakti’ Point, the landing point of Chandrayaan-3, on the lunar surface. It also rolled out over the surface of the Moon and covered a distance of 8 metres.

India took a giant leap on August 23 as the Chandrayaan-3 lander module successfully landed on the moon’s South Pole, making it the first country to have achieved the historic feat and bringing to an end the disappointment over the crash landing of the Chandrayaan-2, four years ago.

Overall, India became the fourth country – after the US, China, and Russia – to have successfully landed on the moon’s surface.