Pragyan rover clicks Vikram lander!Pragyan takes a walk of 100 m near lunar south polevikram softlands for a second time taking a leap. a step for vikram, a giant leap for India
Pragyan the probe from Vikram lander has so far discovered oxygen, aluminium, titanium and sulphur besides other minerals on the moon’s surface closer to the south pole. India’s Chandrayaan 3 rover also has registered seismic activities (natural vibrations) in the lunar surface. As the rover has been put to sleep along with the lander during the moon’s night time, hopes are kept alive for the rover to wake up exactly after the 14 day interval, during the lunar day when its batteries can get charged from the solar power. A single lunar daytime typically lasts 14 earth days and a night in the moon extends to 14 earth days as well. Vikram also took a leap and soft landed again near the south pole, the darker side of the moon which is a remarkable feat for ISRO.
This page shall be updated when Pragyan and Lander wake up after their siesta and set on to discover water ice, essential for human colony at a future date in the moon.
India named the landing spot of the Pragyan probe/Vikram lander from Chandrayaan 3 Lunar Mission as the ‘Shiv Shakthi’ point – after the father and mother of the Universe, Lord Shiva and Shakthi. There is no Hindu dharma without Shakthi, the power. India became the first country in the world to softland/touch down in the darker side of the moon this August 23, 2023, which means India/Indians have been to that part of space where NO OTHER NATION on earth has ever had access to. Shakthi is the kinetic energy. Shiva is static. Together they enable the function or activity. India also named the Indian territory of Antarctica ‘Dhakshina Gangotri’ decades earlier. The ISRO chief Dr Somnath says, its the prerogative of the prime minister to name the spot in his capacity and he is just a scientist. Very mature answer. Similarly someone asked world No.2 and runner-up in Chess world cup Praggnanandhaa about the vibhuthi mark in his forehead. Just 18, he gave a very diplomatic reply that he did what his mother wanted him to do. Faith is someone’s private affair. We Hindus have every right to practise our faith the way we want to. If Mary could get impregnated by IVF (or whoever) over two thousand years back and you have the gall to call it ‘immaculate conception’ and if you cannot stop dreaming of the seventy two virgins waiting for you on the other side of the world, you have no right to comment on anything Hindu.
Never sent my son to a school or college exam without the mark of vibhuthi on his forehead. My father, grandfathers and uncles could never be seen without the vibhuthi ash mark on their foreheads. Some men sport a ‘naamam’ – mostly the vaishnavites but there were grandfathers in our family who sported the naamam as well. In Kerala, men sport even the sandal paste (chandan). Vibhuthi is the ash mark of Lord Shiva. A bindi/vibhuthi is part and parcel of our Hindu identity. It is offered in all temples where we wear it in our forehead with reference and we also have it at home in our puja. Men wear it in forehead after shower. I anoint kumkum (vermilion) in my forehead in the middle east and in India but not in America because America is full of racist bigots and hate crimes. Its safer to be seen a practising Hindu in the middle east. What an irony! Just like the bombers of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Nazis were never called terrorists!
Every Indian satellite is launched only after heartiest Pujas are performed at the most ancient temples of India for the success of the space missions. After the successes, the gods and goddesses are also thanked for their benevolence.
Shivashakthi: Shiva plus Shakthi: Hindus do not believe in an all male god. Brahman for Shakthi followers is Shakthi. We believe the ultimate creator of the universe to be the SHE. This is the reason for most of us Hindus not identifying with Islam or Christianity: because God for us first and foremost is a SHE.
I want to close the post with the beautiful Shivashakthi reference in Soundarya Lahari – partly composed by Lord Shiva Himself we believe and then taken over from 42 to 100th stanza by Shankaracharya in the 7th century CE. That is the antiquity of Bharat, the Hindu country.
Last night was Shiv Rathri for us Indians across the globe. Not only did the resident Indians stay awake, but also NRIs and PIOs spread across continents. The entire Indian diaspora if I may say so. Chandrayaan 2 launched July 22nd from Sriharikota, almost created history. The Lander Vikram separated from Rover Pragyan from the Chandrayaan 2 (the mother satellite in good shape orbiting the Moon) stage by stage in text book precision absolutely following the trajectory of projection. The Rough Break phase was torturous wait for even those of us with not much of astrophysics knowledge. Stage 1 of clearance success, stage 2, success, stage 3, overwhelming success… only stage 4 remained of the tension filled 15 seconds that was more like one hour when we waited with our bated breath for a signal from Vikram … but then followed a lengthy silence from the ISRO Control Room at Bangalore as the radio communication from Vikram snapped… (the landing time was calculated at 1.53 am September 7th)… a billion hearts broke as the nation plunged into despair. The grief was writ large in the faces of ISRO scientists and engineers. Chairman Dr. K Sivan who was in tears was embraced by an emotional Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi ji. What a moment to live for. The final crowing glory that was denied, no more mattered.
PM Modi consoles ISRO Chairman Dr K Sivan who breaks down…
So is Chandrayaan 2 a failure? No way! Only 5% of the Mission was lost with losing contact with the Lander Vikram. Chandrayaan 2 will be orbiting the Moon for the next one year, its estimated life. The orbiter has already beamed pictures of space, Earth and Moon back to ISRO center. India was attempting in this second Moon Mission of ours to soft land on the polar end of the Moon where so far no other nation (of the four to five countries that have their flags on the moon already) had dared to venture. It was risky and the probability of failure was very high. It is almost the dark side of the moon. India’s first Moon mission Chandrayaan 1 landed its probe near the equator of the moon, favourite landing spot for astronauts and other landers.
Chandrayaan 2’s lander Vikram was as close as 2.1 km from the surface of the moon where it should have landed. Whether it crashed or what happened to it will be revealed only through the scientific data. It is impressive that our scientists, technicians and engineers have given us such a precision in landing. Down there lies mystery that so far mankind has not known of. Unexplored space. Simply anything is possible.
Vikram – Lander of Chandrayaan 2 hovering over Moon surface, almost there…
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