Chandrayaan 2 NASA Sends Lunar Orbitor to Fly Over Vikram Again Take Pictures to Spot Lander

New Delhi: The search for lander ‘Vikram’ of India’s second moon mission Chandrayaan-2 as United States space agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), has scheduled another search over its landing site on the lunar surface with the help of its lunar rover.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has been carrying out operations around the crash site of lander ‘Vikram’ trying to locate it. To aid the process, NASA sent its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) to fly over the location and attempt to take pictures.

The US space agency had previously flown the LRO over the south pole of Moon on September 17 and taken high-resolution pictures of the landing site. It was, however, unsuccessful at spotting the lander itself and said that ‘Vikram’ could be hiding in the long shadows of the Moon. NASA came to the conclusion that the pictures were not clear enough as it was already dusk in the south polar region of Moon.

The much-lauded moon mission Chandrayaan-2’s lander Vikram lost communication with ISRO’s ground station after it suffered a hard-landing on the lunar surface. Notably, the lander was merely 2 kilometres away from Moon’s surface.

Since the Moon has already entered its lunar nights, it is now impossible to establish a communication signal with the lander as it was not made to sustain a temperature drop as close to -200 degrees celsius. As a result, ‘Vikram’, might be dead even if it is spotted on the lunar ground.