India's Moon Lander Has Not Replied to Its First Wake-Up Call

"As the sun rose on Friday over the lunar plateau where India's Vikram lander and Pragyan rover sit, the robotic explorers remained silent," writes the New York Times:The Indian Space Research Organization, India's equivalent of NASA, said on Friday that mission controllers on the ground had sent a wake-up message to Vikram. The lander, as expected, did not reply. Efforts will continue over the next few days, but this could well be the conclusion of Chandrayaan-3, India's first successful space mission to the surface of another world... The hope was that when sunlight again warmed the solar panels, the spacecraft would recharge and revive. But that was wishful thinking. Neither Vikram nor Pragyan were designed to survive a long, frigid lunar night when temperatures plunge to more than a hundred degrees below zero, far colder than the electronic components were designed for. The spacecraft designers could have added heaters or used more resilient components, but that would have added cost, weight and complexity... The mission's science observations included a temperature probe deployed from Vikram that pushed into the lunar soil. The probe recorded a sharp drop, from about 120 degrees Fahrenheit at the surface to 10 degrees just three inches down. Lunar soil is a poor conductor of heat. The poor heat conduction could be a boon for future astronauts; an underground outpost would be well-insulated from the enormous temperature swings at the surface. Another instrument on Vikram, a seismometer, detected on Aug. 26 what appeared to be a moonquake... The Pragyan measurement suggests that concentrations of sulfur might be higher in the polar regions. Sulfur is a useful element in technologies like solar cells and batteries, as well as in fertilizer and concrete. Before it went to sleep earlier this month, Vikram made a small final move, firing its engines to rise about 16 inches above the surface before softly landing again. The hop shifted Vikram's position by 12 to 16 inches, ISRO said. "Hoping for a successful awakening for another set of assignments!" ISRO posted on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, on Sept. 2. "Else, it will forever stay there as India's lunar ambassador." "Efforts to establish contact will continue," ISRO tweeted yesterday...

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