BENGALURU: Isro Wednesday released the much-awaited pictures of Chandrayaan-3 lander, the first photos of Vikram released by the space agency since its historic landing on August 23.
The photos, taken by the rover Pragyan at 7.35am Wednesday, show the ramp that allowed the rover to roll out, aside from two payloads descending on to the lunar surface for in-situ experiments.
The two payloads seen descending from Vikram are Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity (ILSA) and Chandra’s Surface Thermo Physical Experiment (ChaSTE). These navigation cameras on Pragyan, the ones that guide the rover, were developed in a quiet lab called LEOS in Bengaluru.
These cameras are the eyes of Pragyan, allowing it to navigate on the lunar surface, while also sending in pictures.
For every path planning, data from these navigation cameras need to be downloaded to ground where a digital elevation model (DEM) is generated. Then, the ground and mechanisms teams decide which path is best for Pragyan and uplink the command for the rover to follow.
As reported by TOI earlier, the rover simply cannot rove indefinitely. Just as human eyes can only see up to a certain distance, there are limitations on the rover too.
“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 at best cover 5 metres. Even there, there are challenges of obstacles etc,” P Veeramuthuvel, Chandrayaan-3 project director, had told TOI.
So far, Pragyan has safely negotiated a small crater with a depth of 10cm (100-mm) crater and avoided and a larger crater (4m diametre) with the help of these cameras.
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