After the successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 Vikram on the lunar surface, the space agency now wants to explore more missions to the moon and other celestial bodies.
As the Chandrayaan-3 mission rover Pragyan is on the prowl collecting crucial data, images, and sharing them back with the rover and then to the Earth, establishing communication between the rover and lander on the lunar surface using Rx/Tx antennas poses significant challenges. These challenges arise from factors as the lunar environment’s harsh conditions, signal interference, maintaining line-of-sight communication and ensuring reliable data transmission over varying distances. Considering these factors, ISRO has implemented high-gain Rx/Tx antennas to address the communication challenges and minimize latency.
Learning from the failure of Chadrayaan-2 in 2019, ISRO chairman S Somnath said that the Vikram lander will be able to make a soft-landing on Moon s surface even if all of its sensors or two engines fail to work.