Chandrayaan 3 news: Pragyan Rover of Chandrayaan-3 was successful in tackling the first challenge. In front of him came a 100mm crater (pit) on the surface of the moon. Pragyan carefully crossed it and the scientists sitting in the ISRO control room heaved a sigh of relief. Right now Pragyan Rover has to deal with many such challenges.
This is his first detailed interview after the precise landing of the lander Vikram on the moon and the deployment of the rover. Veeramuthuvel told TOI that the expectation of good results from the scientific experiments so far has raised confidence.
“None of this would have been possible without the tireless efforts of hundreds of ISRO collaborators. Especially without the navigation-guidance-and-control, propulsion, sensors, and all mainframe subsystems supporting it.’
Veeramuthuvel said that Pragyan’s movements were not completely automatic. He said that there are many challenges before him, each one of which has to be overcome with the involvement of ground teams.
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How Chandrayaan-3’s Pragyan Rover runs on the surface of the moon, understand the whole process
- The project director of Chandrayaan-3 said that there are several steps involved in moving Pragyan from point A to B on the lunar surface.
- For planning each path, the data from the onboard cameras must be downloaded to the ISRO Control Center in Bengaluru.
- A Digital Elevation Model (DEM) is created from this data. The ground and mechanism teams then decide which path to take and command the rover to follow.
- Veeramuthuvel said that the rover movement has some limitations. Each time the navigation camera sends a picture, a DEM of up to five meters can be created.
This means that whenever the rover is given the command to move, it can cover a maximum distance of five meters. - Veeramuthuvel said that there are challenges of many obstacles etc. in front of the rover. He said, ‘We were very worried about the crater earlier, but that obstacle has been removed.’
The rover’s successful negotiation of its first lunar obstacle marks a historic moment in India’s space mission, paving the way for further exploration and understanding of the lunar surface.
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