The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is riding on the high of its Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission’s successful landing, sharing more of it with the world by posting a new video of the lander’s imager observing the rover as it rotates on the no-longer-Super-Blue Moon’s surface.
India’s space agency is trying to research the Moon’s history on the south pole, where the Chandrayaan-3 probe successfully landed last week.
The post describes the rover as a child “playfully frolicking in the yards of Chandamama” in a video captured on August 29th. Chandamama is a term of endearment toward the Moon in Hindi and other regional languages and is also used in nursery rhymes. (My mom used to sing this to me as a lullaby.)
Chandrayaan-3 Mission:
The rover was rotated in search of a safe route. The rotation was captured by a Lander Imager Camera.It feels as though a child is playfully frolicking in the yards of Chandamama, while the mother watches affectionately.
Isn’t it? pic.twitter.com/w5FwFZzDMp— ISRO (@isro) August 31, 2023
The rotation commands to the rover come after ISRO needed to make a path correction for the rover’s movements to avoid a crater — following its exit from the lander, down the ramp, and onto the Moon’s surface. And yesterday, the rover, Pragyan, used its navigation camera to take a picture of its lunar lander buddy named Vikram.
Chandrayaan-3 Mission:
Smile, please !
Pragyan Rover clicked an image of Vikram Lander this morning.
The ‘image of the mission’ was taken by the Navigation Camera onboard the Rover (NavCam).
NavCams for the Chandrayaan-3 Mission are developed by the Laboratory for… pic.twitter.com/Oece2bi6zE
— ISRO (@isro) August 30, 2023