ISRO will not re-establish contact with India's lander Vikram and rover Pragyan which landed on the south pole of the Moon today. ISRO's Ahmedabad-based Space Applications Center (SAC) director Nilesh Desai said that it will be done tomorrow i.e. on September 23.

Desai said, 'Earlier we had planned to reactivate the (Pragyan) rover and (Vikram) lander on the evening of September 22, but due to some reasons now we will do it tomorrow September 23. We have a plan to take the lander and rover out of sleep mode and reactivate it. We planned to take the rover to about 300-350 meters. But due to some reasons... the rover has moved forward by 105 meters there.

Earlier, Nilesh Desai had said that if luck favors them, not only will they be in contact again, but their equipment will also be found in usable condition.

Former ISRO scientist Tapan Mishra also spoke on ISRO's efforts to revive Chandrayaan-3's Vikram lander and Pragyan rover.

#WATCH | Kolkata: Former ISRO scientist Tapan Mishra speaks on ISRO's attempt to revive Vikram Lander and Pragyan rover of Chandrayaan-3. pic.twitter.com/FaviescN6R

ISRO had put both of them in sleep mode after fully charging on September 2 and 4 as the night period had started on the moon, in which they had to go through terrible cold and radiation. SAC makes space equipment for ISRO, it also developed the camera system and threat sensing sensor system for Chandrayaan-3, which were installed on the lander and rover.

According to Desai, both of them have endured colds ranging from minus 120 to minus 200 degrees Celsius in the last 20 days. Now according to Earth time, sunrise has started on the south pole of the Moon from the evening of 20 September. Vikram and Pragyan's solar panels will also start charging their batteries slowly.

It is difficult for electronic equipment to remain healthy in such low temperatures.
Suvendra Patnaik, a recently retired scientist from the Pathani Samanta Planetarium in Bhubaneswar, said that the lander and rover had already sent all the data collected on the lunar surface to Earth. If they are active again, it will be a blessing. It is very difficult for electronic equipment to function properly in minus 250-degree temperatures. Still, everyone is hopeful that it will be able to do something else for us again.

'Hope... luck will work'
Desai said, 'Right now we are keeping our fingers crossed. What damage might have been caused to the equipment of the lander and rover, we will know all that during the efforts to revive them. However, we are hopeful that some equipment from both will work. He said that Vikram has four instruments and Pragyan has two instruments. If any of these start working again, the work being done by ISRO on the Moon will be able to move forward. Many more scientific experiments can also be conducted on the lunar surface and their data will be sent to Earth. Desai said, 'We hope that like every time, this time too our luck will work and we will be able to get some more information about the Moon through this mission.'

(PC: ISRO)