The lander of Chandrayaan-2 had a “hard landing” when it lost contact with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)during an attempt to soft land on the lunar surface three weeks ago, NASA said on Friday, as it released images captured by its reconnaissance orbiter.
The Chandrayaan-2 lander, Vikram, attempted a landing on Sept. 7 on a small patch of lunar highland smooth plains between Simpelius N and Manzinus C craters. Vikram had a hard landing and the precise location of the spacecraft in the lunar highlands has yet to be determined, NASA said.
The images were captured from a Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) Quickmap fly-around of the targeted landing site image width is about 150 kilometers across the center, NASA added.
The pictures were captured by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft. The images were taken at dusk, and the team was not able to locate the lander, the moon orbiter will try to locate and image the lander again in October when lighting will be favourable, the statement said.
“Our @LRO_NASA mission imaged the targeted landing site of India’s Chandrayaan-2 lander, Vikram. The images were taken at dusk, and the team was not able to locate the lander. More images will be taken in October during a flyby in favorable lighting,” NASA tweeted along with images.
The lander, Vikram, was scheduled to touch down on September 7. This event was India’s first attempt to soft land on the Moon.
