India’s Pragyan rover has safely re-routed after coming face-to-face with a four-meter crater on the Moon’s surface.
The Indian Space Research Organisation or ISRO tweeted Monday afternoon to say the rover had spotted the crater a safe three metres from the edge and had directed to a safer path.
The six-wheeled, solar-powered rover will amble around the relatively unmapped region and transmit images and scientific data over its two-week lifespan.
With only 10 days remaining for the completion of one lunar day, Nilesh M Desai, Director, Space Applications Centre (SAC) on Sunday, said that the Chandrayaan-3’s rover module Pragyan, moving on the surface of the moon, is in a “race against time” and that the ISRO scientists are working to cover a maximum distance of the uncharted South pole through the six-wheeled rover.
He said that the moon mission’s three main objectives were: soft landing on the lunar surface, movement of the Pragyan rover and obtaining science data via payloads, attached to the rover and lander Vikram
The payload has a temperature probe equipped with a controlled penetration mechanism capable of reaching a depth of 10 cm beneath the surface.