NASA successfully pinged the vikram lander
A spacecraft orbiting the moon with laser instruments has skillfully and NASA successfully pinged the vikram lander of Chandrayaan-3 mission, the US space agency reported.
Vikram Lander of Chandrayaan-3 recieves rays. NASA spacecraft transmits laser beams.
NASA successfully pinged the vikram lander. India’s stationary spacecraft was at a distance of 100 kilometers away from LRO, near Manzinus crater in the Moon’s south pole region, when LRO transmitted laser pulses toward it on December 12 2023.
When the orbiter approved light that bumbled from a tiny retroreflector of NASA aboard Vikram Lander, US scientists realised that their techniques worked.
Throwing laser pulses towards an object and calculating how long it takes the light to bounce back is a commonly used skill to track the locations of Earth-orbiting satellites from the ground.
“We’ve showed that we can locate our retroreflector on the surface from the Moon’s orbit,” said Xiaoli Sun, who led the crew at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, that concocted the retroreflector on Vikram as part of a partnership between NASA and Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).
“The next step is to improve the technique so that it can become routine for missions that want to use these retroreflectors in the future,” Sun said in a NASA statement..
To conclude from the above details, NASA successfully pinged the vikram lander. Yes, the statement is true.
Only 2 inches, or 5 centimeters, wide, NASA’s teensy yet mighty retroreflector, called a Laser Retroreflector Array, has eight quartz-corner-cube prisms set into a dome-shaped aluminum frame.
The device is simple and durable, scientists say, requiring neither power nor maintenance, and can last for decades. Its configuration let’s the retroreflector to reflect light coming in from any direction back to its source, NASA said.
Retroreflectors can be used for many applications in science and exploration and have been in use at the Moon since the Apollo era.
Reacting to the development, ISRO said the Laser Retroreflector Array (LRA) on the Vikram Lander of Chandrayaan-3 has started serving as a fiducial point (precisely located markers for reference) on the Moon. NASA successfully pinged the vikram lander news has spread good news all around the world.
“NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) achieved a laser range measurement operating the LRA by successfully installing signals reflected by it on December 12, 2023. The ranging tactfully handled the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) on the LRO.
The observation appeared during lunar night time, with the LRO climbing to the east of the Vikram Lander of Chandrayaan-3,” the Indian space agency quoted. NASA successfully pinged the vikram lander has now positive impact on india and its scientist.
Hope by reading the article you came to know about NASA successfully pinged the vikram lander.
For more details about moon and other space article do follow us.