Vikram pulls off a lunar hop before entering sleep mode

NEW DELHI: Hours before being put to "sleep" at least until the next lunar sunrise on September 22 the Vikram lander achieved a significant milestone by successfully "hopping" on the lunar surface on Sunday in a manoeuvre that confirmed the capability of future missions where humans can land on the Moon and spacecrafts can return to Earth with samples.

- Soumya Pillai

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) said on Monday that the Vikram lander "exceeded its mission objectives" when, late on Sunday, its engines were fired up again, and the lander took flight to elevate itself to a height of around 40cm and landed softly again around 30-40cm away from the Shiv Shakti point, where it made a historic landing on August 23.

"Chandrayaan-3 Mission: Vikram soft-landed on [Moon emoji] 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. Importance: This 'kickstart' 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," Isro posted on X.

It also posted a video and photos that showed the lander on the two adjacent landing locations.