As India celebrated its first National Space Day on August 23, ISRO released a series of new photographs from the Chandrayaan-3 mission, which give a glimpse into India’s historic lunar expedition.
ISRO shared photographs taken through a navigation camera or NavCam of the Pragyan rover that had descended the ramp of the Vikram lander after its comfortable landing at the Moon’s south pole last year, on August 23.
The image in these photographs comes as India celebrates National Space Day on August 23, commemorating the first anniversary of the successful landing of Chandrayaan-3.
Chandrayaan-3 is a follow-up project to Chandrayaan-2 aimed at demonstrating the end-to-end ability to land and move safely on the lunar surface. It consists of Lander [Vikram] and Rover [Pragyan] configuration.
The Pragyan rover was deployed via the Vikram lander, which made a comfortable landing near the Moon’s south pole on August 23 last year.
The lander had the ability to soft-land at a specific lunar site and deploy the rover that performed in-situ chemical investigations of the moving lunar surface.
The latest insights from ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3 project support the theory that the Moon was once covered by a magma ocean, or a “magma ocean,” research published in the journal Nature suggested.
The research focused on measurements of the lunar soil, recorded by the Pragyan rover and taken at various points along a 100-meter path on the surface.
This Chandrayaan 3 project marked a significant milestone for India’s space program, making it the fourth country in the world to land comfortably on the Moon and the first to do so near the lunar south pole.
The lunar south pole region is of specific interest for clinical exploration because studies show gigantic amounts of ice there, which may involve counterfeit compounds that would melt in warmer situations elsewhere on the Moon.