As a new lunar night begins, Indian space scientists say chances of the Moon lander waking up are “remote”.<\/p>\n
The Indian space agency Isro did not confirm if further efforts will continue to communicate with it, adding that the lander and rover had completed “all their assignments – and more”.<\/p>\n
Isro had hoped that the Vikram lander would wake up on or after 22 September when a new lunar day began.<\/p>\n
A day and night on the Moon each last just over 14 Earth days.<\/p>\n
The lander, carrying the Pragyaan rover in its belly, touched down<\/a> near the Moon’s little-explored south pole on 23 August. They spent two weeks gathering data and images, after which they were put into “sleep mode”<\/a> at lunar nightfall.<\/p>\n The landing date was carefully selected to coincide with the lunar daybreak since they needed sunlight to charge their batteries and function.<\/p>\n The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) had initially said that the lander and the rover had a life of 14 Earth days, but later hoped the batteries would recharge and the modules would reawaken<\/a> with the lunar sunrise.<\/p>\n But as time went on and no signal was received from the lander, scientists told the BBC that chances of its reawakening were “dimming with each passing hour<\/a>“.<\/p>\n On Friday, former Indian space agency chief G Madhavan Nair told the BBC that “since Vikram lander has not sent any communication so far, chances of its waking up are extremely remote”.<\/p>\n “It is not designed to withstand the extreme weather conditions on the Moon where night temperatures can go down to -200C to -250C (-328F to -418F),” he said.<\/p>\n Mylswamy Annadurai, chief of India’s first Moon mission, told the BBC that “attempts will still be made once in a while to communicate with Vikram lander”, but they will have to be tapped down.<\/p>\n “We can’t keep resources locked up indefinitely to wake up the Moon lander. We have to move them to tracking Aditya L-1, India’s first mission to study the Sun<\/a>. Now Aditya needs to be watched and the attention would shift there,” he said.<\/p>\n “We have to accept that it’s there and move on,” he added.<\/p>\n Isro has provided regular updates<\/a> on the lander and the rover’s movements and findings, and shared images taken by them.<\/p>\n It has also said the mission had met all its stated objectives. A few days back, Chandrayaan-3 project director P Veeramuthuvel said “the lander performing a hop experiment on the Moon was unplanned and exceeded its mission objectives”, India Today<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n India made history with its Chandrayaan-3 mission when it became the first country to successfully land a spacecraft near the lunar south pole.<\/p>\n It also joined an elite club of countries to achieve a soft landing on the Moon, after the US, the former Soviet Union and China.<\/p>\n