The US space agency said a laser instrument aboard a NASA spacecraft orbiting the Moon has successfully pinged the Vikram lander of India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission.
The laser beam was transmitted and reflected between the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and an Oreo-sized instrument on the Vikram lander, opening the door to a new style of precisely locating targets on the lunar surface, NASA said.
The lander was 100 kilometers away from LRO near Manzinus Crater in the moon’s south pole region when LRO transmitted a laser pulse towards it on December 12 last year. After the orbiter registered the light returned from a small NASA retroreflector aboard Vikram, NASA scientists knew that their technique had finally worked.
Sending a laser pulse toward an object and measuring how long it takes for the light to return is a commonly used method for tracking the locations of Earth-orbiting satellites from the ground. However, scientists said the technique of sending laser pulses from a moving spacecraft to a stationary one has many applications on the Moon to determine precise location.
“We have shown that we can detect our retroreflector on the surface from the moon’s orbit,” said Xiaoli Sun, who leads the team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, which conducted the study as part of a partnership between NASA and the Indian Ocean. Retroreflector was developed on Vikram. Space Research Organization (ISRO).
“The next step is to improve the technology so that it can become routine for missions that want to use these retroreflectors in the future,” Sun said in a NASA statement.
Just 2 inches or 5 centimeters wide, NASA’s small but powerful retroreflector, called the Laser Retroreflector Array, consists of eight quartz-corner-cube prisms set in a dome-shaped aluminum frame.
Scientists say the device is simple and durable, requiring neither electricity nor maintenance and can last for decades. Its configuration allows the retroreflector to reflect light coming from any direction back to its source, NASA said.
Retroreflectors can be used for many applications in science and exploration and have been used on the Moon since the Apollo era. Back on Earth, the suitcase-sized retroreflector showed that the Moon is moving away from our planet at a rate of 3.8 centimeters per year, the US space agency said.
Reacting to the development, ISRO said the Laser Retroreflector Array (LRA) on Chandrayaan-3 lander has started serving as a fiducial point (precisely located marker for reference) on the Moon.
“NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) achieved a laser range measurement using the LRA on December 12, 2023, successfully detecting the signals reflected from it. Ranging used the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) on board LRO. The observation occurred during lunar night, when LRO was moving east of Chandrayaan-3,” the Indian space agency said.
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – PTI)
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