Bengaluru: Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chief K Sivan on Sunday informed that the location of Chandrayaan-2’s Vikram Lander has been found.
The ISRO chief, however, added that communication with Vikram Lander was yet to be established. The orbiter had reportedly clicked a thermal image of Lander.
Earlier, Sivan had said that the orbiter’s life is now 7.5 years instead of the earlier one year as its fuel has been used economically.
The Indian Space Research Organisation’s teams associated with the still orbiting Chandrayaan 2 mission were looking for clues in the last minutes of data from the lander Vikram’s descent.
The Chandrayaan-2 has achieved 95 per cent of its mission objectives, the lander’s unsuccessful bid to touch-down on the Lunar surface notwithstanding. Only 5 per cent of the mission has been lost – Vikram, the lander, and Pragyan, the rover. The remaining 95 per cent, that is the Chandrayaan 2 orbiter, is orbiting the moon successfully.
The Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft comprised three segments the Orbiter (weighing 2,379 kg, eight payloads), ‘Vikram’ (1,471 kg, four payloads) and ‘Pragyan’ (27 kg, two payloads).
The 2379-kg orbiter, with a designed mission life of one year, carries eight scientific payloads for mapping the lunar surface and study the exosphere (outer atmosphere) of the Moon.
The orbiter payloads will conduct remote-sensing observations from a 100 km orbit.
According to Isro, the lander carried three scientific payloads to conduct surface and subsurface science experiments, while the rover carried two payloads to enhance our understanding of the lunar surface.
Notably, the lander Vikram was to have set itself down on the moon’s surface at 1.55 .m. on September 7. It had been descending for 12 minutes. Three minutes before that, it lost contact with earth and went blank. It was 2.1 km above the moon’s surface then, ISRO said soon after it detected the setback around 2 am.
