Watch Chandrayaan-3's Pragyan rover take its '1st steps' on the moon (video)

[Admin]

Watch India's Chandrayaan-3's Pragyan rover step onto the moon's surface for the first time and have its picture taken from orbit.

Watch Chandrayaan-3's Pragyan rover take its '1st steps' on the moon (video) : Read more

 

[billslugg]

I wonder why it won't just "wake up" when the sunshine comes back. Extreme cold damages the electronics? Thermal stresses?

 

[24launch]

I wonder why it won't just "wake up" when the sunshine comes back. Extreme cold damages the electronics? Thermal stresses?

Most likely the cold, and yes, potentially just the extremes. A potentially 500F difference between lunar day and lunar night is really difficult challenge for engineering.

And -250F for 2 weeks straight really is a killer. China's rover and lander on the far side basically hibernate and use battery power to warm the critical components during that period. The rover also folds up to help keep the heat inside and better distributed to the critical components. They did some wonderous engineering that has kept the rover and lander operating for as long as they have. Just like our brilliant engineers at JPL and our long-lived orbiters and rovers!

Not that India couldn't have achieved that either, but there were undoubtedly budgetary constraints and 2 weeks is a good technology demonstration. Why spend a fortune on a lander and rover designed to last a year or more on a demonstration mission before you find out what you're weakest links technology-wise are in that crazy harsh environment.

 

[billslugg]

I suspect the extreme cold simply fractures the metal interconnects as they are bonded to a resin board which has a much different coefficient of expansion than metals..