India's Chandrayaan-3 to 'wake up'? Space scientist says lander, rover could 'awaken'

Amid the mammoth excitement among space enthusiasts and the Indian scientists over the waking up of the lander and rover of Chandrayaan-3 after a two-week long lunar night, Bhubaneswar-based space scientist Suvendu Patnayak expressed hope that they will be “awake.”

The Vikram lander and the Pragyan rover of Chandrayaan-3 currently in "sleep mode" near the Moon's South Pole after having completed their set tasks, are expected to awake on Friday (September 22). "Just before it went to sleep, the lander performed a short "hop", briefly firing its thrusters to move about 16 inches on the lunar surface.

"The Chandrayaan-3 landed successfully and it worked for almost 14 days. It was designed to work for 14 days on the Moon. Its life period was only 14 days because the moon's temperature falls down to (-) 250 degrees during the (lunar) night time. So it worked during the sun hours or daytime and during that time it had already given all the data (it was supposed to)," said Bhubaneswar-based space scientist Suvendu Patnayak while speaking to news agency ANI. 

'Scientists are hopeful that Chandrayaan-3 will work again'

Patnayak further explained how the “awakening process” is a bit tricky. "It is very difficult for few electronic components to work in such a huge range of temperature. So it was expected it would not work after 14 days…But a few scientists are very hopeful that it may work again. So if it works again, it will be a boon for us and we will perform the same experiments again and again," Patnayak said.

India made a huge step forward on August 23 when the Chandrayaan-3 lander module successfully touched down on the moon's South Pole, making it the first nation to accomplish the historic achievement and putting an end to the heartbreak of the Chandrayaan-2 crash landing four years ago.

The Vikram lander and Pragyan rover carried out various sets of activities on the lunar surface for around 14 days after touching down on the Moon, including detecting the presence of sulphur and other small elements, recording relative temperature, and listening to motions around it.