Chandrayaan 2: NASA to make another attempt to locate Vikram lander

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration  (NASA)'s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) has scheduled another flyover over the landing site of ISRO's Chandrayaam 2 Vikram lander. If it's successful in capturing Vikram lander's position, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will be able to identify what went wrong with the lunar lander. The United States' premier space agency, during its previous flyby over the site, had revealed on September 17 that Vikram had a "hard landing" on the Moon's surface.

While releasing high-resolution images captured by its LROC, NASA had said the Vikram lander attempted a soft landing on a small patch of lunar highland smooth plains between "Simpelius N and Manzinus C craters" but failed. The agency, however, could not verify the exact location of the spacecraft. NASA had said since lighting would be favourable in October, the LROC would again attempt to "locate and image the lander".

The Vikram lander lost communication with the orbiter moments before it was scheduled to land on the moon. The site where the lander was scheduled to soft-land was located about 600 kilometres from the South Pole in a relatively ancient terrain. Out of the 38 global attempts of 'soft landing' on the lunar surface, only 20 have been successful. Just five months back, Israel's attempt to land on Moon had also failed.

Edited by Manoj Sharma

Also read: Chandrayaan 2: NASA attempts to make contact with lander Vikram on the Moon