Indian rover 'Pragyan' starts exploring moon's south pole
India began exploring the moon's surface with a rover, after becoming the first country to land a spacecraft near the largely unexplored lunar south pole.
The Vikram lander made a successful landing on Wednesday making India the fourth country after Russia, the US and China to make a soft landing on the moon.
The lunar rover, called Pragyan, began exploring the moon's surface on Thursday as part of the country's Chandrayaan-3 mission.
"Rover ramped down the lander and India took a walk on the moon!" the ISRO posted on X, formerly known as Twitter on Thursday.
Rover on the moon
The six-wheeled, solar-powered Pragyan rover will explore the relatively unmapped region and transmit images and scientific data over its two-week lifespan.
"Pragyan"—Wisdom in Sanskrit—began exploring the lunar surface hours after its landing on the moon.
Chandrayaan-3 was launched on a less-powerful rocket on July 14 and had to orbit the earth several times to gain speed, taking almost one month to reach the moon.
The successful launch comes four years after the previous Indian lunar mission failed during its final descent. The failure was seen as a huge setback for the country’s space program.
Having a comparatively low-budget space program, Chandrayaan-3 has a cost of $74.6 million—far lower than many missions from other countries.
Congratulating the team of scientists at India’s Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said, “India’s successful moon mission is not India’s alone...Our approach of one earth, one family one future is resonating across the globe...Moon's mission is based on the same human-centric approach. So, this success belongs to all of humanity.”
India's space programs
In 2014, India became the first Asian nation to put a craft into orbit around Mars and plans to send a probe towards the sun in September.
ISRO is also set to launch a three-day crewed mission into Earth's orbit by next year.
India’s space organization also plans a joint mission with Japan to send another probe to the Moon by 2025 and an orbital mission to Venus within the next two years.
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