Tue, Sep 10, 2019
Contact With The Spacecraft Had Been Lost During Its Final Descent
After losing contact with the Chandrayaan 2 Vikram lunar lander during its final descent to the moon's surface, the Indian Space Agency says it has located the spacecraft on the surface of the moon, though they have few details about the condition of the lander.
NPR reports that contact with the lander was lost about 2:00 a.m. Indian local time Saturday when the lander was about 1.3 miles above the lunar surface. The lander had successfully separated from its orbiter and was headed towards its landing site near the moon's south pole when contact was lost.
About 36 hours later, K. Sivan, the head of India's space agency, told the Indian news agency ANI that the orbiter had captured a thermal image of the Vikram lander on the lunar surface. He said that the agency is trying to reestablish contact with the lander.
The lander carried a rover that was intended to document the presence of ice deposits around the moon's south pole. The ice was discovered by a previous Indian mission to orbit the moon.
India was attempting to become the 4th nation to land a spacecraft on the moon's surface, and many in the country have declared the mission to be a success even though the Indian space agency has not confirmed those claims. The Indian Space Research Organization said in a statement posted on its website that "The Vikram Lander followed the planned descent trajectory from its orbit of 35 km to just below 2 km above the surface. All the systems and sensors of the Lander functioned excellently until this point and proved many new technologies such as variable thrust propulsion technology used in the Lander. The success criteria was defined for each and every phase of the mission and till date 90 to 95% of the mission objectives have been accomplished and will continue contribute to Lunar science, notwithstanding the loss of communication with the Lander."
India Today reports that the lander is in one piece, lying "in a tilted position" on the lunar surface "after a hard landing".
(Image from ISRO animation video)
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