Last Wednesday, the Indian lunar lander Vikram successfully soft-landed at the moon’s south pole, and shortly after, it began performing the tasks it’s intended to carry out on the moon.
Among other things, the small rover Pragyan was aboard Vikram, and shortly after landing, it was deployed from its ‘mothership.’ In the video clip here, you can see how it looked when Pragyan departed from Vikram to begin exploring the area around Vikram.
Pragyan and Vikram are part of the Indian moon mission Chandrayaan-3. This mission will be the first to inspect the lunar surface at the south pole on-site, as this area has previously only been observed from satellites orbiting Earth.
Missions at the moon’s south pole are primarily conducted because researchers are interested in investigating the availability of frozen water there. This resource is likely to be used in the future for rocket fuel and can also be converted into oxygen for the people who will inhabit our future moon colonies.
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