NASA's spacecraft, an onboard laser instrument orbiting the moon, has successfully pinged the Vikram lander of India's Chandrayaan-3 mission, the US space agency said on January 24.
“We showed that we can locate our retroreflector on the surface from the moon's orbit,” said Xiaoli Sun, who led the team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center that developed the retroreflector on Vikram as part of a partnership between NASA and India. Space Research Organization (ISRO), as reported by PTI.
Also read | NASA restores communications with mini helicopter on Mars
“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, the report said.
NASA announced that a laser beam was sent out and bounced back and forth between the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and a device on the Vikram lander, about the size of an Oreo. This breakthrough paves the way for a new method for accurately locating targets on the lunar surface.
The lander was 100 kilometers away from LRO, near the Manzinus crater in the Moon's south polar region, when LRO beamed laser pulses at it on December 12 last year.
Detecting reflected light from a small NASA retroreflector on Vikram, the orbiter confirmed the success of NASA's technique. The conventional method of sending laser pulses at an object and measuring the time it takes for the light to return is often used for tracking satellites in orbit from the ground.
Scientists emphasized that the reverse application of this technique, which involves sending laser pulses from a mobile spacecraft to a stationary spacecraft to determine its precise location, has numerous applications on the moon.
NASA's compact yet rugged retroreflector, known as a Laser Retroreflector Array, is just 2 inches wide and contains eight cube-shaped quartz prisms arranged in a domed aluminum frame.
The device is known for its simplicity and durability, requires no power or maintenance and has a lifespan of decades. The design allows the retroreflector to effectively reflect incoming light from any direction back to its source, as highlighted by NASA.
Retroreflectors, such as these, find applications in various scientific and exploratory endeavors and have been used on the moon since the Apollo era.
By directing light back to Earth, these suitcase-sized retroreflectors have revealed that the moon is gradually moving away from our planet at a rate of 3.8 centimeters per year, according to information from the US space agency.
Responding to this development, ISRO said that the Laser Retroreflector Array (LRA) on the Chandrayaan-3 lander has started functioning as a reference point – a precisely localized reference marker – on the moon.
“NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) achieved a laser range measurement using the LRA by successfully detecting signals reflected from it on December 12, 2023. The range measurement used the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) on the LRO. The observation took place during lunar night time, with the LRO taking off east of Chandrayaan-3,” the Indian space agency added.
Unlock a world of benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time inventory management, breaking news and a personalized news feed – it's all there, just one click away! Log in now!
View all business news, market news, breaking news events and breaking news updates on DailyExertNews. View the latest actions around Budget 2024 here. Download the Mint News app to get daily market updates.
. or less
Published: Jan 23, 2024 08:15 IST