NASA Finds Chandrayaan 2 Lander Vikram, Releases Photos

NASA on Tuesday announced that it had found Chandrayaan 2 ′s lander, Vikram. ISRO had lost contact with the lander after it crashed while making a soft descent on the Moon on September 7.

NASA Moon mission, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, found Vikram and shared photos of the “site of impact and the associated debris field.”

NASA said the lander was located by Shanmuga Subramanian, who reached out to the space agency after identifying the debris. NASA had released a mosaic on September 26 which people had downloaded to search for signs of Vikram.

NASA confirmed Subramanian’s identification by comparing before and after images, the space agency said.

“After receiving this tip, the LROC team confirmed the identification by comparing before and after images. When the images for the first mosaic were acquired the impact point was poorly illuminated and thus not easily identifiable. Two subsequent image sequences were acquired on Oct. 14 and 15, and Nov. 11. The LROC team scoured the surrounding area in these new mosaics and found the impact site (70.8810°S,  22.7840°E, 834 m elevation) and associated debris field,” NASA said . 

In its first mission since Chandrayaan 2, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had last week successfully launched its most complex and advanced earth imaging satellite CARTOSAT-3, a third-generation advanced satellite having high-resolution imaging capability.  Its success was described as “wonderful” by ISRO chief K Sivan.