Video footage shows how Indian rover descends to Moon’s surface

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has published a video on its X page (formerly Twitter), in which it can be seen how the Pragyan lunar rover, which was delivered to the Moon as part of the Chandrayaan-3 mission, descends from the Vikram lander module to the lunar surface through a ramp.

... ... and here is how the Chandrayaan-3 Rover ramped down from the Lander to the Lunar surface. pic.twitter.com/nEU8s1At0W

— ISRO (@isro) August 25, 2023

The Pragyan rover successfully landed on the south pole of the Moon on August 23 and has already managed to move around the surface of the Moon and even sent the first photo to Earth.

The Indian rover will study the lunar surface using an alpha particle X-ray spectrometer and a laser spectroscope, which will determine the chemical and mineralogical composition of the lunar surface. The device's mission will last one lunar day or 14 Earth days.

India has announced that it is not going to stop at this moon mission. Already at the beginning of September, ISRO plans to launch the Aditya-L1 station to study the Sun.

"ISRO is planning many missions in the near future. Aditya-L1 is planned first. This is a mission to study the processes of the Sun, its corona. The rocket will probably be assembled today or tomorrow. We plan to launch in the first week of September if everything goes according to plan,” ISRO chief Sridaraa Somanath said at a press conference after Chandrayaan 3 landed on the moon.

ISRO plans to launch Aditya-L1 into an orbit at the L1 Lagrange point of the Sun-Earth system, which is about 1.5 million km from Earth. Aditya-L1 mission aims to study the solar corona, chromosphere and solar radiation in different spectra.