ISRO Plans To Send Rover To Moon’s Shadow Region Which Never Sees Light

Following trips to the moon and Mars, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has turned its attention to Venus and is collaborating with Japan to examine the moon’s dark side. Anil Bhardwaj, the director of the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad, said during a presentation on ISRO’s next missions at the Akash Tattva conference here that the space agency also intended to send a probe to Mars.

According to Mr. Bhardwaj, there have been discussions on deploying a lunar rover to investigate the moon’s permanent shadow region with the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

According to the original plans, a Japanese rocket will launch an ISRO-built lunar lander and rover into orbit with a planned landing site close to the south pole of the moon.

The rover will subsequently move to a region of the moon that is always in shade and never receives sunlight, according to Mr. Bhardwaj.

He claimed that the examination of the area was fascinating since anything that had persisted in the PSR zone was analogous to something that had been frozen for aeons.

According to Mr. Bhardwaj, the Aditya L-1 mission will be special because a 400-kg class satellite carrying the payload will be positioned in an orbit around the Sun so that it can continuously observe the star from a location known as the Aditya Point.

1.5 million kilometres would separate the orbit from Earth, and it would study coronal heating, solar wind acceleration, the beginning of coronal mass ejections, flares, and near-Earth space weather.

According to Mr. Bhardwaj, the Aditya L-1 and Chandrayaan-3 missions would be prioritised starting as early as next year, and the missions to Venus and the moon with JAXA would likely follow.

The lunar rover on board Chandrayaan-3 needed to be successful because it will be used again on a mission with JAXA.

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