All possible efforts being made to establish communication with Lander Vikram: ISRO

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Tuesday said all possible efforts are being made to establish communication with Lander Vikram.

The space agency in a tweet said, “#VikramLander has been located by the orbiter of #Chandrayaan2, but no communication with it yet. All possible efforts are being made to establish communication with lander.”

This comes after ISRO Chairman K Sivan had told ANI on Sunday that the Chandryaan-2 orbiter has clicked a thermal image of the Lander.

“We are trying to establish contact. It will be communicated soon,” he had said. He had also maintained that it will be “premature to say anything”

The Lander Vikram was to soft-land on the far side of the moon at on September 7. Minutes before its scheduled soft-landing, the communication with Vikram Lander was lost.

It was 2.1 km above the moon’s surface when it lost contact with the ground stations.

A success would have made India the fourth country to place a spacecraft on the moon after the then USSR, the U.S. 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 craft began its journey to the moon on August 14.

The mission took off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on July 22.

(ANI)