“Here is an image of the Chandrayaan-3 Lander taken by the Dual-frequency Synthetic Aperture Radar (DFSAR) instrument onboard the Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter on September 6, 2023,” the space agency said on Twitter.
The Chandrayaan-2 orbiter is still in orbit around the Moon. Isro had successfully established a link between the orbiter and Chandrayaan-3’s lander ahead of the historic touchdown on the lunar surface.
Explaining more about the instrument that took the latest image of the lander, Isro said that a SAR instrument transmits microwaves in a given frequency band and receives the same, scattered from the surface.
“Being a radar, it can image even without solar illumination. It can provide both the distance and physical characteristics of the target features. Hence, SAR is utilized for remote sensing of the Earth and other celestial bodies,” it said.
The agency said that DFSAR is a key scientific instrument onboard Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter which employs microwaves in L- and S-band bands.
“This state-of-the-art instrument is offering the best resolution polarimetric images currently on any planetary mission,” it said.
“The long radar wavelength enables DFSAR to explore lunar subsurface features down to a few metres. DFSAR has been beaming high-quality data by imaging the lunar surface, for the last 4 years, with main focus on the lunar polar science.”