2023-08-31 03:53:00
Days ago, India it became the first country to place a spacecraft near the south pole of the Moon, and the fourth nation to land on the moon. Now the Indian scout robot confirmed the presence of sulfur in that little-explored poleas reported by the space agency of that country.
“The Laser Induced Decay Spectroscopy (LIBS) instrument aboard the Chandrayaan-3 mission rover made the first in situ measurement of the composition of elements on the lunar surface near the south pole,” said the Indian Special Research Organization (ISRO) in a statement.
“These in situ measurements confirm the presence of sulfur in the region, something that was not possible with the instruments on board” of the orbiters, adds the statement, dated Monday, August 28.
India is the fourth country to land on the Moon
Spectrographic analysis also confirmed the presence of aluminum, calcium, iron, chromium and titanium on the lunar surfacer, added ISRO. Likewise, other measurements showed the presence of manganese, silicon and oxygen.
The robot Pragyan (wisdom in Sanskrit) – six-wheeled and powered by solar energy – will travel through this area of the satellite, scarcely mapped; and will transmit images and scientific data from the south pole over the course of two weeks.
India and the Chandrayaan-3 mission
Until now, only the Soviet Union, the United States and China had managed to carry missions to the surface of the Moon.
India has sought to match the achievements of other space programs at a fraction of their cost, despite some disappointment: Four years earlier, another lunar mission had failed its final descent.
The mission Chandrayaan-3 It has captivated public attention since its launch nearly six weeks ago in front of thousands of viewers, and it took much longer to reach the Moon than the US Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s, which reached the satellite in a few days.
Its successful moon landing occurred last week, shortly after a Russian spacecraft crashed in the same area. The deployment includes a lander called Vikram — which means “courage” in Sanskrit — and the mobile robot Pragyan.
Páncora, the underwater robot that is looking for Nahuelito
The budget for this mission is $74.6 million: experts say it achieves these low costs by copying and adapting existing space technology and taking advantage of the abundance of highly-trained engineers who earn much less than their foreign counterparts.
In 2014, India became the first Asian country to place a spacecraft in Mars orbit and expects to launch a probe towards the Sun in September. ISRO plans to launch a three-day manned mission into Earth orbit next year.
It also plans a joint mission with Japan to send another probe to the moon by 2025 and an orbital mission to Venus in the next two years.
AG / ED
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