Chandrayaan-3 Update: Did you know Pragyan Rover’s on-board motor is more efficient than your water pump?

Chandrayaan-3 update: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is set to make history today by landing its mission-on-moon, Chandrayaan-3, on the south pole of the moon at around 6:04PM today. Once, the Vikram Lander touches down on the surface of the moon it will deploy the Pragyan Rover, which will carry an on-site analysis of the moon using the scientific equipment on-board during the course of the mission. An interesting bit about the Pragyan Rover is that it has a small 50W motor on-board that will be used for steering it towards the site on the surface of the moon where it will carry out the analysis of the lunar surface based on the equipment on-board.

While that might not seem interesting to you at first, but there is more to it than that. The motor on-board Chandrayaan-3‘s Pragyan Rover generates way less power than the motor that is commonly used in the water pumps in our homes. For understanding, the motor that is commonly used in the water pumps generates 2HP (1,491W) to 5HP (3,728.5W) of power, while the smallest motors that are used in water pumps generate around 0.5HP or 372W of power. Simply put, a small motor generating a limited amount of power is aiding India’s lunar mission.

Chandrayaan-3 Mission:
All set to initiate the Automatic Landing Sequence (ALS).
Awaiting the arrival of Lander Module (LM) at the designated point, around 17:44 Hrs. IST.

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Upon receiving the ALS command, the LM activates the throttleable engines for powered descent.
The… pic.twitter.com/x59DskcKUV

— ISRO (@isro) August 23, 2023

Everything you need to know about Chandrayaan-3’s Pragyan Rover

As far as the details regarding the Pragyan Rover are concerned, it weighs around 27kg and it has six wheels that will cover a distance of around 500m at a speed of 1cm per second or 0.036 kilometers per hour. The Pragyan Rover has two equipment on-board. First is the LASER Induced Breakdown Spectroscope or LIBS, whose function is to analyse the soil on the moon to understand its chemical Composition and mineralogical composition. The second equipment on-board is the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer or APXS, which will help the scientists to understand the elemental composition of the lunar soil and rocks around the landing site on the south pole of the moon.

All you need to know about Chandrayaan-3

Chandrayaan-3 consists of three important modules — an indigenous Lander module or LM, a Propulsion module or PM and a Rover Module. Of these, the Rover Module, or the Pragyan Rover. The main function of Propulsion Module is to carry Vikram Lander from launch vehicle injection till final lunar 100km circular polar orbit and separate the Lander Module from the Propulusion Module.

On the other hand, the Vikram Lander will help in soft landing on the surface of the moon. It will also deploy the Pragyan Rover, which will carry out in-situ chemical analysis of the lunar surface.