Chandrayaan-3 update: 'All activities are on schedule, rover mobility operations have commenced,' says ISRO 

Chandrayaan-3's rover mobility operations have commenced, the ISRO informed on Thursday, a day after landing the country's third lunar spacecraft on the south pole of the Moon. The space agency said all activities are on schedule and all systems are normal. The lander module payloads have been turned on, the space agency said, adding that the payloads on the propulsion module, which is orbiting the moon, were switched on Sunday.

Chandryaan-3 landed on the south pole of the Moon at 6:03 PM on Wednesday.  

Lander Vikram has three payloads - Radio Anatomy of Moon Bound Hypersensitive ionosphere and Atmosphere (RAMBHA), Chandra’s Surface Thermophysical Experiment (ChaSTE), Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity (ILSA), and LASER Retroreflector Array (LRA).

RAMBHA payload will measure the near-surface plasma (ions and electrons) density and its changes with time, while ILSA will measure seismicity around the landing site and delineating the structure of the lunar crust and mantle. The LRA is a passive experiment to understand the dynamics of the Moon system.

The rover, Pragyan, has two payloads - LASER Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS), and Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS). LIBS will carry out qualitative and quantitative elemental analysis to derive the chemical composition and infer mineralogical composition to further the space agency's understanding of the lunar surface. APXS is used to determine the elemental composition (Mg, Al, Si, K, Ca,Ti, Fe) of the lunar soil and rocks around the lunar landing site. 

Earlier this morning, ISRO informed that the rover ramped down from the lander, and "India took a walk on the moon." The space agency on Wednesday shared the first picture of the surface of the Moon after Chandrayaan-3's landing. The image showed a portion of the spacecraft's landing site. The agency also shared four images of the lunar surface taken by the lander's horizontal velocity camera during the descent.