India’s lunar rover completes its mission and is put to ‘sleep’

India’s space mission said its lunar rover completed its walk on the lunar surface less than two weeks after its historic landing near the lunar South Pole.

“The Rover completed its tasks. It is now safely parked and in sleep mode,” the Indian Space Research organization said in a statement. a statement about Xformerly known as Twitter, on Saturday.

The rover’s payloads were turned off and the data it collected was transmitted to Earth via the lander. The Chandrayaan-3 lander and rover were expected to operate for only one lunar day, which is equivalent to 14 days on Earth.

The organization said that the battery is fully charged and that its solar panel will be ready to receive light at the next sunrise, which is expected on September 22. The organization added that it “expects a successful awakening for another set of tasks.” .”

The rover was looking for signs of frozen water on the lunar surface that could possibly aid future astronaut missions so it could be a source of drinking water or produce rocket fuel. The organization did not detail if the rover found frozen water.

The space agency said earlier this week that the rover confirmed sulfur and other elements were present on the lunar surface, including aluminum, iron, calcium, chromium, titanium, manganese, oxygen and silicon.

After India’s successful mission to land the rover on the moon last week, India became the fourth country, after the United States, the Soviet Union and China, to achieve this goal.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.