Pragyan rover traverses 8 metres on lunar surface, its payloads turned on

Bengaluru: ISRO on Friday said the Chandrayaan-3 rover, ‘Pragyan’, has successfully traversed a distance of about eight meters and its payloads have been turned on.

”All planned rover movements have been verified. The rover has successfully traversed a distance of about 8 meters. Rover payloads LIBS and APXS are turned on,” the space agency said in a post on X.

”All payloads on the propulsion module, lander module, and rover are performing nominally,” it added.

The Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) aims to derive the chemical composition and infer the mineralogical composition of the lunar surface.

The Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS) will attempt to determine the elemental composition (Mg, Al, Si, K, Ca, Ti, Fe) of lunar soil and rocks around the lunar landing site.

ISRO on Thursday said the Lander payloads ILSA, RAMBHA, and ChaSTE were turned on.

ILSA will measure seismic activity around the landing site and RAMBHA will study the plasma environment around the Moon. Chandra’s Surface Thermophysical Experiment (ChaSTE) will measure surface thermal properties of the Moon.

India on Wednesday scripted history as its third unmanned Moon mission’s lander module made a flawless soft-landing, making it only the fourth country to achieve this feat, and the first to reach the uncharted south pole of Earth’s only natural satellite.