Former ISRO chairman AS Kiran Kumar in an interaction discussing the establishment of communication with Chandrayaan 3’s Vikram lander and Pragyan rover said that there is no hope of reviving them now.
“No, no, there won’t be any more hope of reviving. Now, if it should have happened, it should have happened by now. There is (now) no chance at all,” Kumar was quoted as saying by the PTI.
ISRO’s plan to revive the lander and rover
ISRO put the lander and rover were put to sleep early last month in hopes of reviving them again on September 22 when a new lunar day began. However, the agency failed to do so when the day came. ISRO said that efforts were made to reconnect with the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover, both powered by solar energy. However, it added that there were no signals received from either of them.
India landed the Vikram lander on the South Pole of the Moon in a historic mission on August 23. The lander and the rover conducted several experiments on the lunar surface. Both were designed to operate for one whole lunar day, about 14 days on Earth.
The Vikram lander and Pragyan rover fulfilled their mission goals before they were put to sleep. On September 4, ISRO said that the lander had exceeded its mission goals. It even conducted a ho test on the lunar surface. In the test, the lander fired its engines and lifted itself approximately 40 cm, and landed securely 30-40 cm away. As per ISRO’s statement on September 2, the Pragyan rover had also finished all its tasks.