NEW DELHI — India’s moon rover has accomplished its stroll on the lunar floor and been put into sleep mode lower than two weeks after its historic touchdown close to the lunar south pole, India’s area mission stated.

“The rover completes its assignments. It is now safely parked and set into sleep mode,” with daylight on that part of the moon coming to an end, the Indian Space Research Organization said in a statement late Saturday.

The rover’s payloads are turned off and the data it collected has been transmitted to the Earth via the lander, the statement said.

The Chandrayaan-3 lander and rover were expected to operate only for one lunar day, which is equal to 14 days on Earth.

“Currently, the battery is fully charged. The solar panel is oriented to receive the light at the next sunrise expected on September 22, 2023. The receiver is kept on. Hoping for a successful awakening for another set of assignments!” the statement said.

There was no word on the outcome of the rover searches for signs of frozen water on the lunar surface that could help future astronaut missions, as a potential source of drinking water or to make rocket fuel.

Earlier this week, the the space agency said the moon rover confirmed the presence of sulfur and detected several other elements. The rover’s laser-induced spectroscope instrument also detected aluminum, iron, calcium, chromium, titanium, manganese, oxygen and silicon on the surface, it said.

The Indian Express newspaper said the electronics on board the Indian moon mission are not designed to withstand very low temperatures, less than minus 120 degrees Celsius ( minus 184 degrees Fahrenheit) during the nighttime on the moon. The lunar night also extends for as long as 14 days on Earth.

Pallava Bagla, a science writer and co-author of books on India’s space exploration, said the rover has limited battery power.

The data is back on Earth and will be analyzed by Indian scientists as a first look and then by the global community, he said

By sunrise on the moon, the rover may or may not wake up because the electronics die at such cold temperatures, Bagla said.

“Making electronic circuits and components that can survive the deep cold temperature of the moon, that technology doesn’t exist in India,” he stated.

After a failed try and land on the moon in 2019, India final week joined the United States, the Soviet Union and China as solely the fourth nation to realize this milestone.

The profitable mission showcases India’s rising standing as a expertise and area powerhouse and dovetails with Prime Minister Narendra Modi want to venture a picture of an ascendant nation asserting its place among the many international elite.

The mission started greater than a month in the past at an estimated price of $75 million.

India’s success got here simply days after Russia’s Luna-25, which was aiming for a similar lunar area, spun into an uncontrolled orbit and crashed. It had been supposed to be the primary profitable Russian lunar touchdown after a spot of 47 years.

Russia’s head of the state-controlled area company Roscosmos attributed the failure to the lack of know-how as a result of lengthy break in lunar analysis that adopted the final Soviet mission to the moon in 1976.

Active because the Nineteen Sixties, India has launched satellites for itself and different international locations, and efficiently put one in orbit round Mars in 2014. India is planning its first mission to the International Space Station subsequent yr, in collaboration with the United States.