India’s space agency Isro says it is trying to contact its Moon lander and rover as a new lunar day begins, but has not received any signals so far.
The lander, carrying the rover in its belly, touched down near the Moon’s little-explored south pole in August.
They spent two weeks gathering data and images, after which they were put into ‘sleep mode’ at lunar nightfall.
Isro hoped the batteries would recharge and the modules would reawaken when the Sun rose around 22 September.
But it is possible that the extreme cold of the lunar night damaged the batteries.
On Friday, Isro posted on X (formerly Twitter) that “efforts to establish communication with the Vikram lander and Pragyaan rover will continue”.
India made history with its Chandrayaan-3 mission when it became the first country to successfully land a spacecraft near the lunar south pole.
It also joined an elite club of countries to achieve a soft landing on the Moon, after the US, the former Soviet Union and China.
The landing was carefully planned to coincide with the start of a lunar day, so that Vikram and Pragyaan would have two weeks of sunlight to work with. One day on the Moon equals a little over four weeks on Earth, with the day and night each lasting about 14 days.
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