"Chandrayaan-3: Can India's Moon Explorers Brave the Cold Lunar Night Without Heaters?"
India's Chandrayaan-3 robotic explorers, the lander Vikram and rover Pragyan, are currently in sleep mode on the moon's south pole region. However, they lack heaters to survive the frigid lunar night, where temperatures can drop as low as -424°F (-253°C). The absence of radioisotope heater units (RHUs) leaves their survival up to chance. Previous moon missions, such as Lunokhod 1 and China's Chang'e-3, utilized RHUs to keep their hardware warm during the lunar night. Despite the lack of heaters, Chandrayaan-3 successfully accomplished its science goals in a region known for its potential reservoirs of frozen water.