First click: Pragyan navcam captures Vikram on the Moon

Chandrayaan-3's Pragyan Rover clicked an image of the Vikram Lander on Wednesday morning, ISRO announced on X, formerly Twitter. The 'image of the mission' was taken by the Navigation Camera onboard the Rover (NavCam), ISRO said.

Seven days after Chandrayaan-3’s soft-landing on the Moon, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has released the image of the lander, Vikram.

The space agency released the image of the lander captured on Wednesday by a navigation camera on board the rover, Pragyan.

Navigation cameras for the mission were developed by the ISRO Laboratory for Electro-Optics Systems in Bengaluru.

ISRO also identified in the image two of the lander’s payloads – ChaSTE and ILSA – in a deployed state. While ChaSTE (Chandra’s Surface Thermophysical Experiment) analyses the thermal properties of the lunar surface, ILSA (Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity) measures the seismicity around the landing site.

The instruments on board the lander and the rover have been conducting scientific experiments on the lunar surface. The lander module comprising Vikram and Pragyan touched down near the lunar south pole on August 23.