Mission Accomplished, India Puts Moon Rover to 'Sleep' for 14 Days (reuters.com) 34
To complete one full rotation around its axis it takes the moon 655 hours. So a single "lunar day" is 13.64 earth days.
But sunset has finally come for India's Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft and its Pragyan rover, writes long-time Slashdot reader Geoffrey.landis , and the rover has switched off for the coming 655-hour night: With luck from the moon gods, it will wake up with the sunrise in 14 days. But, even if not, mission accomplished! It was designed for fourteen days of operation, the daylight period. In that time the rover accomplished just over a hundred meters (American units: one football field) of traverse, examining and chemically analyzing the surface.
"The Indian Express newspaper said the electronics on board the Indian moon mission werenâ(TM)t designed to withstand very low temperatures, less than -120 C (-184 F) during the nighttime on the moon," according to the Associated Press. But the rover's accomplishments already include making the first-ever measurements of the south pole's near-surface Lunar plasma, and confirming the presence of aluminum, calcium, chromium, titanium, manganese, and silicon. There's also sulphur, iron, oxygen and other elements on the moon, Reuters reports, citing a statement from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO): The Pragyan rover from the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft was "set into Sleep mode" but with batteries charged and receiver on, the ISRO said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, late on Saturday. "Hoping for a successful awakening for another set of assignments!" ISRO said. "Else, it will forever stay there as India's lunar ambassador."
Earlier this week the ISRO posted footage of the rover completing a near-pirouette to search for the safest route.
"The solar panel is oriented to receive the light at the next sunrise expected on September 22, 2023," the ISRO posted Saturday.
But sunset has finally come for India's Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft and its Pragyan rover, writes long-time Slashdot reader Geoffrey.landis , and the rover has switched off for the coming 655-hour night: With luck from the moon gods, it will wake up with the sunrise in 14 days. But, even if not, mission accomplished! It was designed for fourteen days of operation, the daylight period. In that time the rover accomplished just over a hundred meters (American units: one football field) of traverse, examining and chemically analyzing the surface.
"The Indian Express newspaper said the electronics on board the Indian moon mission werenâ(TM)t designed to withstand very low temperatures, less than -120 C (-184 F) during the nighttime on the moon," according to the Associated Press. But the rover's accomplishments already include making the first-ever measurements of the south pole's near-surface Lunar plasma, and confirming the presence of aluminum, calcium, chromium, titanium, manganese, and silicon. There's also sulphur, iron, oxygen and other elements on the moon, Reuters reports, citing a statement from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO): The Pragyan rover from the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft was "set into Sleep mode" but with batteries charged and receiver on, the ISRO said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, late on Saturday. "Hoping for a successful awakening for another set of assignments!" ISRO said. "Else, it will forever stay there as India's lunar ambassador."
Earlier this week the ISRO posted footage of the rover completing a near-pirouette to search for the safest route.
"The solar panel is oriented to receive the light at the next sunrise expected on September 22, 2023," the ISRO posted Saturday.
good night moon (Score:4, Insightful)
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Putting rover to sleep?
Reminds me of when my Dad said he took the dog to a farm.
Misinformation (Score:1)
A football field is 91.44 meters between the goal lines and 109.7 meters between the ends. In other words, a football field is NOT 100 meters by any measure. Not even diagonally. Have to wonder what the purpose of this misinormation is. Who is behind it?
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A bigger question is, how are they going to play football on the moon?
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On the wrong size football field, it'll never work.
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That actually sounds like a blast, might make a good video game
NFL Blitz: Lunar Madness
Re:Misinformation (Score:5, Funny)
A football field is 91.44 meters between the goal lines and 109.7 meters between the ends. In other words, a football field is NOT 100 meters by any measure. Not even diagonally. Have to wonder what the purpose of this misinormation is. Who is behind it?
91.44 meters plus tax and tip, of course. This is America, you always have to add tax and tip.
Re:Misinformation (Score:4, Informative)
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And my comment was to expose the self-hating pedants who don't like pedants.
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Colonization PTSD triggered? LOL i wasn't thinking about that. I didn't even think India was "colonized" for that long. Plenty of countries have been colonies it's no big deal. The UK was a Roman "colony" for example. Sometimes you're colonized other times the colonizer is you. Everyone's ancestry consists of ruled and rulers at some point -- whether they know it or not. Quit connecting noise instead of dots.
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Re: Misinformation (Score:3)
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Re: Misinformation (Score:3)
A football pitch is between 90 and 120m long, or 100 and 110 for international games. Calling it 100m is just a nice round number thatâ(TM)s generally good enough.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
Why did you assume it was an American football pitch? Where did the text of the story originate - perhaps India?
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And you, presumably, aren't from the USA, because if you were, you'd know that American football is played on a field, not a pitch, which term is what's use in TFS. Getting snarky at a poster while making such an obvious blunder is just so typical here.
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Pitch and field are used interchangeably, so don't read anything in to that. That's just splitting hairs for the sake of it.
Electronics in the cold. (Score:2)
It will be interesting to see if the electronics do manage to restart. E
Oh no, no, no!! (Score:1)
One hundred meters is NOT 100 yards: It's around 110 yards.
So it's the length of a CANADIAN football field, not the puny American one!
Seriously though, very well done for the Indian space agency for their success with the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft and its Pragyan rover!
Indeed (Score:2)
The Moon is not only a harsh mistress, it's also hell for chicken.
Lunar Day? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Lunar Day? (Score:4, Informative)
Yep, the second sentence couldn't be more confusing.
> So a single "lunar day" is 13.64 earth days.
Lunar day (daytime only) vs earth day (24h, which includes nighttime).
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Forgive them, for they are idiots.
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Ahh, thanks, somehow I missed that it was the end of the official mission, I thought the sleep and wakeup was part of it and not an extension.
Well then I'll hope for teh best on wakeup since it wasn't really designed fully to handle it! Hopefully the engineering was all more rigorous than it needed to be.
Rover is cool; summary is not (Score:3)
"But sunset has finally come for India's Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft and its Pragyan rover"
Any lunar rover is way cool, and big props to India for pulling it off - but the prose in the summary is ridiculous. This thing just landed on the moon August 23 - less than two weeks ago. The summary is written as if it's been boppin' around the moon for years.
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How many cricket pitches is that? (Score:1)
How many cricket pitches is that?
Sideral vs solar day (Score:3)
Do not put Geoffrey.landis in charge of your orbital mechanics project.
The *sideral* day for the Moon is 655 hours. However, in that time the Earth/Moon system has progressed ~1/13th of the way around the Sun so it takes an additional 53 hours to get from one lunar sunrise to the next (ignoring nutation).