ISRO locates Chandrayaan-2 lander on Moon, but yet to make contact
The Indian Space Research Organisation has managed to locate Vikram, the Chandrayaan-2 lander, on Moon’s surface a day after losing contact with the craft. However, Isro is yet to establish contact with Vikram; the space agency lost communications with the lander minutes before it was to land on near the south pole of the Moon on Saturday.
According to sources, communication with the lander has not yet been established.
The lander was located with the help of the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter, which remains safe and is revolving around the Moon. The orbiter managed to shoot a thermal image of the Vikram lander.
In an exclusive interview to India Today TV, Isro chief K Sivan said that the agency has managed to locate the lander using the orbiter and has attained a thermal image of it.
Isro has been able to identify the lander Vikram, but the condition of the lander is yet to be ascertained.
The soft-landing of Chandrayaan-2’s landing module, Vikram, did not go according to plan as all ground communication was lost with it just moments before the scheduled landing late on September 7.
The landing began minutes before 1:40 am Saturday, and then things went awry around 12 minutes after Vikram began its descent.
Isro will investigate several factors to determine what triggered the communication loss with Chandrayaan-2’s lander, Vikram.
Sources have informed India Today TV that the Chandrayaan-2 team will investigate key datasets like final emissions and signals, last sets of sensor data to find out the reason behind the communication loss with Vikram lander.