Indian moon rover sets out to explore lunar south pole

August 24, 2023 - The moon rover from India’s Chandrayaan-3 lander has exited the spacecraft to begin exploring the surface, after an historic touchdown at the lunar south pole.

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The “Pragyan” rover carried inside India’s Chandrayaan-3 moon lander, has successfully exited the vehicle to begin its exploration of the lunar surface, the country’s space agency says.

The spacecraft landed on the unexplored south pole of the moon on August 23, just days after Russia’s Luna-25 mission crashed into the surface while trying to be the first to get there. Instead, India is the first country to achieve the feat of landing in the challenging rough terrain of the south.

The lunar south pole is of great interest due to containing water ice, which is hoped will be capable of providing drinking water and, when broken down into Hydrogen and Oxygen, fuel for future missions.

Chandrayaan-3 is expected to remain operational for two weeks, running experiments such as a spectrometer analysis mineral compositions.