Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Sunday said it has located Lander Vikram with which the space agency lost communication moments before it was scheduled to make a soft-landing on the South Pole region of the moon on September 7.
The Orbiter has clicked a thermal image of the Lander, ISRO chief K Sivan said. "We have found the location of Lander Vikram on lunar surface and orbiter has clicked a thermal image of Lander," Mr Sivan told ANI over the phone.
However, the ISRO chief underlined that no communication has been established with the Lander yet.
"We are trying to establish contact. It will be communicated soon," he added.
He also maintained that it will be "premature to say anything".
"We are trying to establish contact with Vikram lander," he added.
ISRO's Chandrayaan 2 mission has three modules - Orbiter, Lander Vikram and Rover Pragyan. While the Lander, also carrying the Rover lost communication before the touchdown, the Orbiter is still intact and is communicating with the mission control.
The lander Vikram was to land on the moon's surface at 1.55 am on September 7. It had been descending for 12 minutes. Three minutes before that, it lost contact with Earth. It was 2.1 km above the moon's surface when it lost contact with the ground station at ISRO headquarters in Bengaluru.
A success would have made India the fourth country to place a spacecraft on the moon after the then USSR, the US and China. Also, India would have been the first country to reach close to the lunar south pole.
The Vikram Lander successfully separated from Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter on September 2. After revolving around the Earth's orbit for nearly 23 days, the spacecraft began its journey to the moon on August 14.
The mission took off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on July 22.
While the Rover was to carry out experiments on Lunar surface for a period of 1 lunar day (equal to 14 Earth days) after rolling out of the Lander, the mission life of Vikram is also 1 lunar day. The Orbiter will continue its mission for a duration of one year.
(With ANI inputs)
