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ISRO on Saturday said it has collected advanced data from the Chandrayaan-2 lunar orbiter to gain a deeper understanding of the Moon's polar regions, including parameters describing the physical and dielectric properties of its surface. This is India's major value addition towards future global exploration of the Moon, it said. According to an ISRO statement, the Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter has been in orbit around the Moon since 2019 and has been providing high-quality data. One of the payloads, the Dual Frequency Synthetic Aperture Radar (DFSAR), is the first instrument that has mapped the Moon using the L-band in full-polarimetric mode and in the highest resolution (25m/pixel). This advanced radar mode sends and receives signals in both vertical and horizontal directions, making it ideal for studying surface properties, it said. The space agency said that since its launch, about 1,400 radar datasets have been collected and processed to create polarimetric mosaics of the north and sou
A privately owned lunar lander touched down on the moon with a drill, drone and rovers for NASA and other customers Thursday, but quickly ran into trouble and may have fallen over. Intuitive Machines said it was uncertain whether its Athena lander was upright near the moon's south pole standing 15 feet (4.7 meters) tall or lying sideways like its first spacecraft from a year ago. Controllers rushed to turn off some of the lander's equipment to conserve power while trying to determine what went wrong. It was the second moon landing this week by a Texas company under NASA's commercial lunar delivery programme. Sunday's touchdown was a complete success. The company's newest Athena lander dropped out of lunar orbit as planned. The hourlong descent appeared to go well until the final approach when the laser navigation system began acting up. It took a while for Mission Control to confirm touchdown. We're on the surface, reported mission director and co-founder Tim Crain. A few minutes
Ice could be present at more locations right beneath the Moon's surface at the poles than previously thought, a study of data collected by the Chandrayaan-3 mission has suggested. Large, yet highly local, changes in surface temperatures can directly affect the forming of ice, and looking into these ice particles can reveal "different stories about their origin and history", lead author, Durga Prasad Karanam, Faculty, Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad told PTI. This can also tell us about how ice accumulated and moved through the Moon's surface over time, which can provide insights into the natural satellite's early geologic processes, he said. The findings are published in the journal Communications Earth and Environment. The Chandrayaan-3 mission, launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) from Bengaluru, achieved a soft landing near the Moon's south pole on August 23, 2023. The landing site was named the 'Shiv Shakti Point' three days later on August 26. For
A private lunar lander carrying a drill, vacuum and other experiments for NASA touched down on the moon Sunday, the latest in a string of companies looking to kickstart business on Earth's celestial neighbour ahead of astronaut missions. Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander descended from lunar orbit on autopilot, aiming for the slopes of an ancient volcanic dome in an impact basin on the moon's northeastern edge of the near side. Confirmation of successful touchdown came from the company's Mission Control outside Austin, Texas, following the action some 225,000 miles (360,000 kilometers) away. You all stuck the landing. We're on the moon, Firefly's Will Coogan, chief engineer for the lander, reported. An upright and stable landing makes Firefly a startup founded a decade ago the first private outfit to put a spacecraft on the moon without crashing or falling over. Even countries have faltered, with only five claiming success: Russia, the US, China, India and Japan. A half hour
A private company launched another lunar lander Wednesday, aiming to get closer to the moon's south pole this time with a drone that will hop into a jet-black crater that never sees the sun. Intuitive Machines' lander, named Athena, caught a lift with SpaceX from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. It's taking a fast track to the moon with a landing on March 6 while hoping to avoid the fate of its predecessor, which tipped over at touchdown. Never before have so many spacecraft angled for the moon's surface all at once. Last month, US and Japanese companies shared a rocket and separately launched landers toward Earth's sidekick. Texas-based Firefly Aerospace should get there first this weekend after a big head start. The two US landers are carrying tens of millions of dollars' worth of experiments for NASA as it prepares to return astronauts to the moon. It's an amazing time. There's so much energy, NASA's science mission chief Nicky Fox told The Associated Press a few hours ahead of th