ISRO chief receives handmade model of Vikram lander from young neighbour as Chandrayaan-3 explores moon

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief S Somanath received a unique gift congratuklating him and the team of scientists on the successful landing od Chandrayaan-3 on the South Pole of the Moon, a historic first. Somanath received a handmade model of the Vikram lander model from a very young neighbour. 

ISRO scientist PV Venkitakrishnan shared the news of the heart-warming gesture on microblogging site ‘X’ (formerly Twitter). He wrote, "ISRO Chief Sri Somanath today had a surprise visitor. A young neighbour boy has handed over his own-made Vikram Lander model to the ISRO chief on behalf of all the neighbours."

See the post here

In another uplifting moment that went viral on social media, ISRO Chief Somanath was seen receiving applause mid-air during a flight.

Meanwhile on Saturday, ISRO informed that the Pragyan Rover that is collecting information on the South Pole of the Moon has traversed 100 metres on the rugged terrain.

“Meanwhile, over the Moon, Pragyan Rover has traversed over 100 meters and continuing.” ISRO posted on X.

Chandrayaan-3 mission's rover 'Pragyan' has confirmed the presence of sulphur in the lunar region by deploying a different technique, ISRO said.

Chandrayaan-3 mission has three components- The propulsion module, which transferred the lander and the rover module to 100 kilometres of lunar orbit, the Lander module, which was responsible for the soft landing of the lunar craft and the Rover module, which is for exploring components on the moon.

India took a giant leap on August 23, as the Chandrayaan-3 lander module successfully landed on the moon’s South pole, making it the first country to have achieved the historic feat.

The country became the fourth– after the US, China, and Russia – to have successfully landed on the moon’s surface.

On Saturday ISRO also successfully launched Aditya L1 mission from Sriharikota. The Aditya L1 spacecraft will stay in Earth's orbit for sixteen days. After four months of journey, the satellite will be placed on the L1 point in the halo orbit around the Sun.

Aditya L1 is designed to provide remote observations of the Solar corona and conduct in-situ observations of the Solar wind at L1 (Sun-Earth Lagrangian point), which is about 1.5 million kilometres from the Earth.