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Chandrayaan 3's Vikram Lander shares first image of moon 'flat' landing site
Chandrayaan 3's Vikram lander has shared the first image after landing on the moon's south pole.
Chandrayaan 3's Vikram lander has shared the first image after landing on the moon's south pole.
“The image captured by the Landing Imager Camera after the landing. It shows a portion of Chandrayaan-3's landing site. Seen also is a leg and its accompanying shadow. Chandrayaan-3 chose a relatively flat region on the lunar surface”, ISRO shared a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Earlier, ISRO had said that the communication link between the Vikram lander and MOX, Bengaluru had been established. Vikram lander also shared images of the moon taken during descent.
India scripted history after it became the first country to land on the moon's south pole. The 'Pragyaan' rover has been deployed on the south pole and will be used by ISRO scientists to carry out experiments over the next 14 days to explore the composition of lunar soil and rocks. The south pole is expected to have ice deposits and minerals.
The Chandrayaan 3 mission launched on July 14 onboard Launch Vehicle Mark III, took 41 days to touch down on the moon's surface. There were 13 maneuvers including two deboosting ones for the Vikram lander after entering the lunar orbit. The lander was separated from the Propulsion Module(PM) on August 17.
With its touchdown on moon, less than a week after the Russian Luna 25 spacecraft crashed into the lunar surface, India is now the fourth country to soft-landing on the Moon after the US, China and erstwhile Soviet Union.
Chandrayaan 3's predecessor Chandrayaan 2 had failed in its lunar phase when its lander Vikram crashed into the surface of the moon minutes before the touch down following anomalies in the braking system in the lander while attempting a landing on September 7, 2019.
