Chandrayaan 2: NASA releases image of Vikram lander’s impact site

Impact site of Chandrayaan 2’s Vikram lander as photographed by NASA’s LRO mission (Image: Twitter/@NASA)

A National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) satellite, orbiting the Moon, has found Chandrayaan 2’s Vikram lander which crashed on the lunar surface in September.

The US space agency released an image taken by its LRO that showed the site of the spacecraft's impact (September 6 in India and September 7 in the US) and the associated debris field, with parts scattered over almost two dozen locations spanning many kilometres.

In a statement, NASA said it released a mosaic image of the site on September 26, inviting the public to search it for signs of the lander.

It added that a person named Shanmuga Subramanian contacted them with a positive identification of debris -- with the first piece found about 750 meters northwest of the main crash site.

The #Chandrayaan2 Vikram lander has been found by our @NASAMoon mission, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. See the first mosaic of the impact site https://t.co/GA3JspCNuh pic.twitter.com/jaW5a63sAf

— NASA (@NASA) December 2, 2019

With the Chandrayaan 2 mission that launched in July, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had hoped to make India just the fourth country after the United States, Russia and China to make a successful Moon landing, and the first on the lunar south pole.

The main spacecraft, which remains in orbit around the Moon, dropped the unmanned lander Vikram for a descent that would take five days, but the probe went silent just 2.1 kilometres above the surface.

Days after the failed landing, ISRO had said it had located the lander, but had not been able to establish communication with it.

(With inputs from PTI)