Chandrayaan 2 lander located on moon’s surface, no communication yet
BANGALURU/ NEW DELHI : Chandrayaan 2 lunar lander Vikram has been located on the moon’s surface and the ground station is working to establish contact, news agency PTI quoted ISRO chief K Sivan as saying today.Yes, we have located the lander on the Lunar surface. It must have been a hard-landing, Sivan told PTI. It must have been a hard-landing,” Dr Sivan said, adding that it was unclear at this stage if the lander had been damaged. He said the rover Pragyan, which is housed inside the lander, was located by on-board cameras of the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter.
Asked if the lander was damaged during the hard-landing, he said: That we do not know. Sivan said efforts to establish contact with the lander were continuing. Earlier on September 8, Sivan had told news agency ANI that Vikram’s location had been found.
“We have found the location of Vikram lander on lunar surface and orbiter has clicked a thermal image of lander. But there is no communication yet. We are trying to have contact. It will be communicated soon,” Sivan has been quoted as saying by ANI.
India had expected to make space history with the Rs. 1,000-crore Chandrayaan 2 mission. A successful soft landing on the moon’s surface would have made the country only the fourth – after the United States, Russia and China – to achieve the feat. It would also have made India the first country to complete a soft landing near the South Pole on its first attempt.
“The last part of the operation was not executed in the right manner. It was in that phase that we lost link with the lander, and could not establish contact subsequently,” he said.
(With input from PTI, ANI).
