Following Chandrayaan-3, India’s potential Moon mission achievement, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is currently preparing missions that might bring back samples for Earth. On September 3, the Vikram lander made a step in that direction by performing a hop on the Moon’s surface.
Future lunar missions would be built on the data from Chandrayaan-3, especially the productive hop experiment, an ISRO official stated under the condition of anonymity. According to him, the space agency will use the results of these studies to create programmes that seek to return samples to Earth.
We are striving to build our systems so they can do a return flight, although there is no set deadline for this just yet. The official was reported by Hindustan Times as noting that the hop trial was only a showcase of the wider goal.
Only a handful of nations have proven they can make the hop. Vikram, the lander from Chandrayaan 3, achieved a successful soft landing on the moon’s surface once more on September 3 after performing a hop.
“Vikram made another gentle landing on the moon! The mission goals were exceeded by Vikram Lander. It underwent a hop experiment successfully. It lifted itself up by roughly 40 cm as planned upon instruction, ignited the engines, and then safely landed at a distance of 30 to 40 cm, according to ISRO’s ‘X’ (formerly Twitter) message.
This ‘kick-start’ inspires upcoming sample return and human expeditions, therefore it must be important! All systems functioned normally and are in good condition. After the trial, deployed Ramp, ChaSTE, and ILSA were successfully folded back and redeployed, the space agency noted.
