The second phase of Chandrayaan-3 is set to take off when its lander and rover modules Vikram and Pragyan wake up from their 14-day lunar slumber, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said on September 21. Responding to the discussion on the Moon mission in the Lok Sabha, Singh said all efforts were being made to awaken Vikram and Pragyan from their sleep. "When we sleep on earth tonight, Vikram and Pragyan will perhaps wake up on the Moon," Singh said.
Making history, India's Vikram lander touched down near the south pole of the moon on August 23, successfully completing one of the Chandrayaan-3 mission's main objectives of soft landing on the lunar surface. Singh said Vikram and Pragyan carried out experiments on the lunar surface since they landed on the Moon on August 23 and were put to sleep on September 4 with batteries fully charged and solar panels placed to catch the rays of the sun after the sunrise near the Moon's south pole.
"Our communication circuit (with the lander and rover) has to get activated. The communication circuit is called the wake up circuit. It will work when the temperature rises to minus 10 degrees. Now team ISRO and everyone connected to the mission are waiting for the temperature to rise on the moon," he said. "As the temperature rises above minus 10 degrees, a wake up call will go and Vikram and Pragyan will rise from their sleep," Singh said.
"This will happen for the first time in the world. Tomorrow, when the country will celebrate the passage of the women's reservation bill, perhaps, we will also have the opportunity to celebrate the occasion of the waking up of Vikram and Pragyan," the minister said. "Second phase of Chandrayaan-3 is about to take off in the next few hours. The moment of anxiety is that we are waiting for the wake up call to get activated and Vikram and Pragyan to respond to that alarm. Once they do, the communication from the earth will begin and we will be the first in the world to have accomplished this," Singh said.
The day-long discussion on Chandrayaan-3 also witnessed some heated exchanges when Singh tried to suggest that the previous prime ministers did not allocate adequate resources to the space agency. "Trucks were available back then, but space scientists were not given transport facilities and the rocket had to be ferried over a carriage," Singh said, drawing protests from the opposition benches.
Singh said India's space economy was pegged at USD 8 billion and was projected to touch USD 40 billion in the next 15 years. "India is moving on the fasttrack and the world was taking note of this fact," Singh said.
He said during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Washington, the US had offered to send an Indian astronaut to the International Space Station and also wanted India to be part of its semiconductor consortium. "Notwithstanding (Jawaharlal) Nehru, something must have happened that India has moved on the fasttrack," Singh said.
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