The Pragyan rover just snapped a picture of the Vikram lander hard at work on the Moon’s surface. This pic is like the superstar of the mission pics, and it was captured by the rover’s Navigation Camera, aka NavCam.
The NavCams are one of the most vital components on board the rover and will lead it during the whole mission. They were developed by the clever folks at the Laboratory for Electro-Optics Systems (LEOS) in Bengaluru. These cameras are the real MVPs.
Think of these cameras as the rover’s trusty ‘eyes’ guiding it through all the bumpy and tricky lunar landscapes. They’re like the rover’s GPS, helping it figure out where to go and what to avoid so it can cruise safely on the Moon.
ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3 has been making significant strides since it nailed a soft landing on the Moon’s surface on August 23, 2023. With that, India joined an elite club of just four countries that have pulled off this lunar landing. India’s landing is even more unique because it is at the lunar south pole, an unexplored territory until now.
The Pragyan rover and the Vikram lander have been complex at work since the soft landing. The rover is like a space detective with its payloads, which include the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) and the Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS). These widgets help it determine what the Moon is made of by analyzing its dirt and rocks.
It has already made some significant discoveries on the surface of the Moon. For example, it has discovered traces of sulfur on the lunar surface. Along with sulfur, the rover has also found traces of aluminum, titanium, oxygen, silicon, magnesium, and several other minerals, which will be crucial for developing human colonies on the Moon.
The photo of the Vikram lander taken by the Pragyan rover isn’t just a simple social media post. This pic shows how the rover and lander are working together. The rover collects and analyzes specific aspects of the Moon on its own and relays all that to the lander. The Vikram lander is carrying out its data collection and experiments and relaying everything it is learning to ISRO’s ground stations.
As the rover and the lander continue with their mission, we will get more pics and data to help us understand the Moon.
