Chandrayaan-3 surprises ISRO with unplanned ‘hop experiment’ on Moon

Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft has completed all its mission objectives on the Moon, however, the Vikram lander surprised the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) with its successful ‘hop experiment’, according to a report published by Hindustan Times. 

It means the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft again landed on the Moon on command, which was not planned. The ‘hop experiment’ indicates new possible opportunities for future moon missions. 

The major challenge for ‘Vikram and Pragyan’ was to come back into action after surviving the chilling -200 degrees Celsius of temperature. It was believed that if the onboard instruments survived the low temperature on the Moon, the modules could come back to life and continue their mission to send information from the moon for the next fourteen days.

The Vikram Lander and the Pragyan rover performed different sets of tasks on the lunar surface after landing. This included finding the presence of sulfur and recording relative temperature. Pragyan traveled over 100 m (330 feet), confirming the presence of sulfur, iron, oxygen, and other elements on the moon.

The lander and rover -- with a total mass of 1,752 kg -- were designed to operate for one lunar daylight period (about 14 Earth days) to study the surroundings there.

After conducting experiments on the moon from August 23 to September 4, the rover and lander modules of Chandrayaan-3 were put to sleep in a bid to survive the extremely frigid atmosphere at the south pole of the moon.

On 2 September, both lander Vikram and rover Pragyan were "safely parked" and put to sleep mode after the lunar night had set in. As per details, one day on the Moon is equivalent to 14 days on Earth.

India's Vikram lander touched down near the south pole of the moon on August 23, successfully completing one of the Chandrayaan-3 mission's main objectives of soft landing on the lunar surface.