Chandrayaan 3 Mission's New Milestone: Vikram Makes Soft-Landing on Moon Again | Details Of Hop Test

In another significant milestone, Chandrayaan 3’s Vikram successfully made a soft landing again on the surface of the moon after the lander performed a hop, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said on Monday. India scripted history by soft-landing the Vikram lander of Chandrayaan-3 on the lunar surface on August 23.

“Vikram soft-landed on the moon, again! Vikram Lander exceeded its mission objectives. It successfully underwent a hop experiment. On command, it fired the engines, elevated itself by about 40 cm as expected, and landed safely at a distance of 30-40 cm away,” ISRO said in an update on ‘X’ (formally Twitter).

The space agency did not specify when this experiment was conducted. However, it is anticipated that the hop test was likely done before the sleep command was enabled on the lander on Sunday.

Both Vikram and the rover Pragyan were in sleep mode with ISRO hoping to bring them back to life on September 22, when the Sun rises again on the Moon.

Noting that the Vikram lander exceeded its mission objectives, ISRO said the importance of the exercise was that this ‘kick-start’ enthuses future sample return and human missions.

“Importance?: This ‘kick-start’ enthuses future sample return and human missions! All systems performed nominally and are healthy. Deployed Ramp, ChaSTE, and ILSA were folded back and redeployed successfully after the experiment,” the space agency added.

India became the fourth country to touch the lunar surface and the first to ever reach the south pole of the moon.

After its landing on August 23 till Saturday, both Pragyan and Vikram sent a repository of data to ISRO, some of which has been made public by the agency.