Chandrayaan 2 Lander which lost the contact with ground stations during its final descent in the early hours of Saturday, has been located on moon’s surface, confirmed by ISRO Chief. “We’ve found the location of lander Vikram on lunar surface and orbiter has clicked a thermal image of the lander. But there is no communication yet. We are trying to have contact. It will be communicated soon,” Mr Sivan also added by saying, “It must have been a hard landing”.
Chandrayaan-2 is second lunar exploration mission of India after Chandrayaan-1 and was launched on 22 July 2019 14:43 IST (09:13 UTC) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota at Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh.
The lander has been named Vikram while on the other hand, the rover is named Pragyan. Rover Pragyan is going to be kept inside lander Vikram and will be set out after Vikram lands on lunar surface.
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chief, K Sivan to ANI:We’ve found the location of #VikramLander on lunar surface&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. #Chandrayaan2 pic.twitter.com/1MbIL0VQCo
— ANI (@ANI) September 8, 2019
Chandrayaan-2 is going to attempt to soft land a lander as well as rover in a high plain in the middle of two craters such as Manzinus C and Simpelius N, at a latitude of around 70° south. If the mission gets successful then Chandrayaan-2 is going to be the second mission to land a rover close the lunar south pole.
Mr Sivan on the other hand also said it was still not clear at this stage that if the lander had been damaged or not.
India had expected to make this space history with the Rs. 1,000-crore Chandrayaan 2 mission.
Regarding the mission, ISRO has said that this mission is going to use and test several new technologies and held new experiments. The wheeled rover is going to move on the lunar surface and will carry out on-site chemical study. The data is going to be transmitted to Earth through the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter, which will allied on the same launch.
From past ten years, this was the second time India launched a mission to the Moon’s surface. In the year 2009, Isro launched Chandrayaan-1. That mission, on the other hand, did not comprise a rover. Chandrayaan-1 comprised an orbiter as well as an ‘impactor’ that collided into the Moon’s surface near the South Pole.
Talking about the Chandrayaan-2, the mission is going to examine lunar soil. The rover Pragyan is going to gather samples and perform experiments, transfering its findings to the orbiter. The orbiter will then use this data and its specific findings to carry out study of lunar soil.
On Saturday, in a statement to national broadcaster Doordarshan, Dr Sivan had blamed faulty implementation of the last stage of the operation for the loss of communication.
“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.
A successful soft landing on the surface of the moon would have made the country only the fourth nation to achieve the feat. Other nations who achieved the feat are United States, Russia and China. It would also have made India the first ever country to accomplish a soft landing near the South Pole on its first attempt.
