NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) satellite finds Chandrayaan – 2’s Vikram lander
A National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) satellite orbiting the moon has found India’s Chandrayaan – 2 Vikram lander which crashed on the lunar surface on September 7, 2019.
The U.S. space agency also released an image taken by its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) that showed the site of the spacecraft’s impact and associated debris field, with parts scattered over almost two dozen locations spanning several kilometres. The lander was expected to settle about 373 miles from the lunar South Pole on September 6, 2019, but the team lost contact with the craft shortly before touchdown.
NASA made a tweet which read, “The #Chandrayaan2 Vikram lander has been found by our @NASAMoon mission, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. See the first mosaic of the impact site go.nasa.gov/33Dl5Fr.”
RT NASA "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/Q9bYQ9gqDU pic.twitter.com/zShD7YVU83"
— Mike Frantel (@MikeFrantel) December 2, 2019
Prior to this, on September 26, 2019, NASA had issued a statement where it released a mosaic image of the site and had invited the public to search it for signs of the lander. Responding to this, Chennai based I.T. techie – Shanmuga Subramanian contacted the LRO project with a positive identification of debris, with the first piece found about 750 meters North-West of the main crash site.
A Press Release from NASA read, “The debris first located by Shanmuga is about 750 meters northwest of the main crash site and was a single bright pixel identification in that first mosaic.”
Speaking on being mentioned in a Press Release by NASA, Subramanian said, “It was something challenging as even NASA couldn’t find out. So why can’t we try out? And that’s the thought that led me to search for Vikram lander.”
The 33 years old Subramanian is originally from Madurai and works in the IT sector, at a multinational firm in Chennai. He is a Mechanical Engineer from the Government Engineering College in Tirunelvelli, Tamil Nadu. He used to work for upto 7 hours every day in his Chennai apartment to locate the lander.
After being confident of his findings, he sent a tweet to NASA and Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). He also sent emails to a couple of NASA scientists who were in charge of the LRO images.
Taking it to twitter, Subramanian shared the email, he received from Deputy Project Scientist – LRO Mission. He tweeted, “@NASA has credited me for finding Vikram Lander on Moon’s surface #VikramLander #Chandrayaan2″
#Chandrayaan2@NASA has credited me for finding Vikram Lander on Moon's surface#VikramLander #Chandrayaan2@timesofindia @TimesNow @NDTV pic.twitter.com/0vfEKFEOix
— Prashant Katiyar(जिला सचिव कानपुर ग्रामीण) (@Prashant1Ads) December 3, 2019
READ THE LETTER HERE: https://twitter.com/Ramanean/status/1201637543394983936/photo/1
Speaking to media, Subramanian said, “It’s quite big but it is a little sad at the same time because we all expected Vikram to land on the surface. I hope ISRO will again have a successful Chandrayaan 3 and they will be able to land on moon next time.”
It is to be noted that Chandrayaan – 2 was launched on July 22, 2019 at 14:43 hours Indian Standard Time (IST), from the Sriharikota island in Andhra Pradesh. The Rs. 1,000 crores mission would have made India the fourth country to soft launch on moon after United States (U.S.), Russia and People’s Republic of China. The mission’s objective was to search for water and minerals on the moon surface and to measure moonquakes.
