The Pragyan rover was delivered to the Moon as part of the Chandrayaan-3 mission in August 2023. The vehicle conducted research from August 23 to September 4, after which both it and the lander were put into sleep mode to survive the very cold lunar night. At the end of September, ISRO tried to “wake up” both devices, but in this regard they failed.

“The Chandrayaan-3 mission was a huge success. This gives us the confidence to continue working on our programs. After two weeks of data collection, the devices are fast asleep, so I recommended that our specialists not reactivate them so that they sleep forever. Unfortunately, we hoped that they would wake up, but this did not happen,” Somanath said.

He speculated that this could have happened for many reasons. In addition, if it were possible to reactivate the lunar rover, people on Earth would not know about it, since it maintained contact with the planet through the lander, which was in sleep mode. According to Somanath, it remains to be hoped that the data obtained from two weeks of research will bring “fantastic scientific results in the coming days.”

Russia and the United States have extended the cross-flight program to the ISS until 2025.

Let’s remember, “Chandrayaan-3” mooned August 23. In the history of India, this is the first successful lunar mission, and the country itself became the fourth after the USSR, USA and China, which managed to land its apparatus on the natural satellite of the Earth. In particular, the Pragyan lunar rover has already measured the temperature of the Moon and found sulfur, aluminum and iron on it.