The Vikram lander of the Indian lunar mission Chandrayaan 3 has managed to exceed the mission objectives, successfully undergoing a jump test.
After receiving a command from the control center on Earth, Vikram started the engines with which he gently landed near the lunar south poles on August 23. “He rose about 40 centimeters as expected and landed safely at a distance of 30 to 40 centimeters,” ISRO explained in its X account.
For the Indian space agency, this jump represents a “boost” for the return of samples from the Moon and the development of manned missions to the satellite.
All systems nominally worked and are in good condition. They were shut down and redeployed successfully after the experiment.
Vikram now plans to go into shutdown mode. Before that, in situ experiments are carried out with various payloads at the new location. Vikram will fall asleep next to the Pragyan rover once the solar power and battery run out, awaiting its awakening around September 22, 2023.
SOLAR OBSERVATORY
On the other hand, the Indian solar observatory Aditya-L1 , successfully launched on September 2, is maneuvering to obtain elliptical orbits increasingly distant from the Earth before heading towards its final position at the L1 gravity equilibrium point. between the Sun and the Earth, 1.5 million kilometers away, where it will arrive in four months.
Aditya-L1 (aditya is ‘sun’ in Sanskrit) is a nearly 1.5 ton space observatory, built by ISRO. Its objective will be to study the interaction between the photosphere, the chromosphere and the solar corona, with special emphasis on flares and coronal mass ejections.
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