Chandrayaan-3: ISRO yet to hear from Vikram Lander & Pragyan Rover

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has not received any signals from the Chandrayaan-3 Vikram lander and Pragyan rover, as of Friday evening.

Efforts to establish communication with them will continue. The team is still hopeful that the devices will wake up, but certain conditions need to be met for this to happen. The Chandrayaan-3 mission has already been successful in meeting all its objectives, including safe landing and scientific experiments.

Efforts have been made to establish communication with the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover to ascertain their wake-up condition. As of now, no signals have been received from them. Efforts to establish contact will continue, posted ISRO on ‘X’.

Chandrayaan-3 Mission:
Efforts have been made to establish communication with the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover to ascertain their wake-up condition.

As of now, no signals have been received from them.

Efforts to establish contact will continue.

— ISRO (@isro) September 22, 2023

More than a fortnight ago, when it uplinked the commands to put Vikram and Pragyan in sleep mode, the space agency said it hoped for their waking up on September 22.

Ahead of the second phase of the Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission, former Indian Space Research Organisation ISRO chief K Sivan expressed optimism and said that the success of the wakeup call regarding the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover is something which “we have to wait and see”.

After a historic ‘soft landing’ on what is considered a tough task – the south pole of the Moon – Chandrayaan 3 of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is now aiming for a ‘bonus’ achievement of being revived after its lander Vikram, and rover Pragyan, worked for a good 14 Earth days.

The whole setup was then sent into sleep mode (on September 2, the rover went to sleep, while the lander did so on September 4), citing the harsh cold conditions that developed on the lunar surface due to the lack of sunlight.

Both the lander and the rover were put into sleep mode earlier this month on September 4 and 2 respectively, ahead of the lunar night setting in on Earth’s only natural satellite.