Chandrayaan-3's Pragyan rover covers 100m distance on the moon's surface, reports Indian news.

BENGALURU: In a milestone, Pragyan the Chandrayaan-3 rover has completed traversing more than 100 metres on the lunar surface and its instruments are continuing to send data.

Pragyan Rover Reaches 100-Metre Mark

Just minutes after the Aditya-L1 mission was declared a success, ISRO on Saturday announced that the Pragyan rover has traversed over 100 metres on the Moon’s surface. This is a significant milestone for the Chandrayaan-3 mission.

Rover Operations and Challenges

Rover operations are not fully autonomous and require commands to be sent from Earth. Pragyan’s movement is riddled with multiple challenges, each of which needs to be overcome every time the rover moves.

Path Planning: For every path planning, onboard navigation camera data must be downloaded to the ground for the generation of a digital elevation model (DEM).
Decision Making: The ground and mechanisms team will then decide which path to take and uplink the command for the rover to follow.
Limitations: The maximum DEM that can be generated is only for 5 metres each time the navigation camera sends images, which means every time the rover is commanded to move, it can cover at best 5 metres.
Obstacles: There are challenges of obstacles along the rover’s path. So far, Pragyan has safely negotiated a small crater with a depth of 10cm and avoided a bigger crater with a diameter of 4 metres to choose a safer route.

As of Saturday, ISRO has already conducted multiple rover movements, showcasing the successful navigation and operation of the Pragyan rover on the lunar surface.

Conclusion

The Pragyan rover on the Chandrayaan-3 mission has achieved another milestone by traversing more than 100 metres on the lunar surface. Despite the challenges faced during its movement, the rover’s instruments continue to send valuable data to Earth. This progress is a testament to the success of ISRO’s lunar exploration program and opens up further possibilities for future missions.

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