Why Chandrayaan-3 is a great step forward for Indian space programme

> After four decades of orbiter missions, lunar exploration gathered steam again in 2019, as three missions attempted soft landing. Chang’e 4 of China landed successfully on the far side of the moon along with the Yutu-2 rover. Beresheet is notable for being the first Israeli and the first privately funded lunar landing attempt, but it crashed
https://www.theweek.in/theweek/cover/2023/08/26/chandrayaan-3-indian-space-programme-success-story.html #Chandrayaan3 #India #Moon #Space

The #Chandrayaan3 mission surprised yet again, when the #Vikram lander did a short hop on the lunar surface yesterday. It repositioned itself by about 40 cm.

I upscaled and interpolated the official video by ISRO.
https://twitter.com/isro/status/1698570774385205621

Credit: #ISRO/Simeon Schmauß

#Chandrayaan3 #PragyanRover shared an image of the #VikramLander clicked using its #NavigationCamera.
#PrideofIndia #India
Source : #ISRO

@Geotripper Nice photo! High noon for the #Chandrayaan3 lander/rover. The mission is halfway through -it started at dawn and will end (probably) at dusk, two weeks from now.
#Moon #SolarSystem #SolarPower

Two days ago the Lander imager camera on #Vikram captured the #Pragyan rover doing a 360 turn. You can see it pushing up a lot of lunar regolith with its wheels. #Chandrayaan3

I upscaled and interpolated the official video by ISRO:
https://twitter.com/isro/status/1697156752641536030

Credit: #ISRO/Simeon Schmauß

#PragyanRover #Chandrayaan3 detects #sulphur, other elements on the #Moon
Presence of #oxygen #calcium #iron too
#LaserInducedBreakdownSpectroscopy #LIBS instrument onboard made the first-ever in-situ measurements on the elemental composition of the lunar surface near #SouthPole.
#ISRO @ISRO
https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/science/chandrayaan-3-rover-moon-sulphur-hydrogen-isro-8915187/

The full landing sequence of #Chandrayaan3

I wrote a python script to undo the frame blending from the original video and then upscaled the images with AI.
The video is at 120x playback speed, in reality this took about 66 minutes.

Credit: #ISRO / Simeon Schmauß

#India became just the fourth nation to make a successful landing on the #moon #Space #Chandrayaan3

https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-08-27-india-chandrayaan-3-lands-moon-south-pole.html

Stories about #Chandrayaan3 moon mission, #VisionPro, #holoprojectors, #Atari, #Kinect, #WoodenComputers, #Roblox, #TenaciousD, #StarWars and more!

http://gamesatwork.biz/2023/08/28/e430-thats-no-moon-its-the-moon/

#shownotes for @gamesatwork_biz #podcast e430 are done, and publication set for tomorrow on https://www.gamesatwork.biz and all your favorite podcast feeds! Topics this week include #Chandrayaan3 #VisionPro, #holoprojectors, #Atari, #Kinect, #WoodenComputers, #Roblox, #TenaciousD, #StarWars and much more! Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode!

on the #shownotes #grind jamming to some #EarthWindAndFire for @gamesatwork_biz in preparation for tomorrow's posting of e430 — stories & toots about #Chandrayaan3 #VisionPro, #holoprojectors, #Atari, #Kinect, #WoodenComputers, #Roblox, #TenaciousD, #StarWars and a whole lot more! Check out the earlier episodes, chock full of #AI #metaverse #AR #VR #gamification and so much more on https://www.gamesatwork.biz

The moon is a harsh place for humans and life. It has no atmosphere or magnetic field, there is harmful solar and cosmic radiation and it is subject to extreme temperatures.

Daytime surface temps near the lunar equator can reach 120° C, while nighttime temps get to a chilly -130° C. Temps near the poles are even lower, as low as -250°C, as measured by the NASA LRO Orbiter.

Certain crater areas have lower average temps and lower temp variations.

https://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/lithos/LROlitho7temperaturevariation27May2014.pdf
#Chandrayaan3
6/n

It is wonderful to see Chandrayaan-3 data published by ISRO scientists in such a timely manner.

Would be helpful if they also provide date/time when the data was collected.

Also, some more context and relevance of the data, and some description of the instruments and techniques used would be useful for science outreach purposes.

#Chandrayaan3
5/n

Closer to the lunar surface, the temperature ranges and gradients are much higher, as measured by Apollo 15 and 17.

The 1st graph below shows average temp by depth (it is not the temp. at any particular time of the day, which is what we see in the CH3 data).

The 2nd graph shows peak-to-peak temp. variation by depth. As expected, variations are lower as one goes deeper.

The Apollo missions made measurements for several years.

#Chandrayaan3
4/n

Here is some data from the Apollo 15 and 17 measurements of sub-surface temperatures. Below 2 meters, the temperature remained fairly constant around -16C.

Of course, the temp. profile varies across night and day and across latitudes. Also, surface temps vary across a wide range across 28 days.

There is great interest in finding depths and locations with narrow temp. ranges suitable for human habitats.

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19780005001/downloads/19780005001.pdf
#Chandrayaan3
3/n

Sub-surface temp. measurements were made by the Apollo and the Chang'e landers, but none near the South pole, although there are plenty surface of surface measurements made using the Diviner instrument on the NASA LRO orbiter.

Apollo 15 and 17 made measurements near the equator at depths up to 2 m. CH3 measurements have max depth of 8 cm.

Below are diagrams of the probes used by Apollo 15 and 17.

https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1976LPSC....7.3143L&defaultprint=YES&filetype=.pdf
#Chandrayaan3
2/n

Should India have a space program when hundreds of millions of Indians live in poverty?

ABSOLUTELY YES. Here’s a one-minute video explaining why: https://youtube.com/shorts/MV5skFSyWls

#Chandrayaan3 #india #space #poverty

As the day grows, the shadows shrink at the landing site of the Chandrayaan-3 lander and rover.

The following chart shows the approximate length of the shadow for unit height over the current lunar day.

The shadow shrunk from about 4x to 3x in the past two days but will not shrink much more from here onwards.

Note that we do not have the precise time when these images were taken.

The height of the solar panel is approx. equal to the width of the rover.

#Chandrayaan3 #ISRO
19/n

New video of Chandrayaan-3 rover Pragyan checking out its new neighborhood.

https://youtu.be/S9UlIFmEKJ0
#Chandrayaan3 #ISRO
18/n

Here is a plot that shows the approximate elevation of the Sun (degrees above horizon) at the Chandrayaan-3 lander site on the lunar surface.

Given that Chandrayaan-3 is at 69.37° S latitude, the maximum elevation is around 20°. Hence the near-vertical orientation of the solar panels on the lander and the rover. The Sun will disappear below the horizon and the mission will come to an end around Sep 4.

Calculation info: https://the-moon.us/wiki/Sun_Angle
#Chandrayaan3 #ISRO
@barrygoldman1
17/n