After loosing contact with the lander Vikram during the soft landing on Saturday, 7 September, 2019, ISRO finally found the missing lander. ISRO sources confirms that the lander is found 500m away from the actual landing spot. Seen from the OHRC (Optical High Resolution Camera) through the mission’s lunar orbiter which took the thermal image of the lander Vikram on the moon’s surface.
The space agency, however, has not been able to establish communication with the Vikram lander yet. Space experts suggest the agency would try to establish contact with the Vikram lander for the next 14 days, and that information coming in from the Orbiter would be crucial.
We don’t know the actual condition of lander yet. What exactly does the thermal image show – is the structure of the lander intact? Is lander Vikram sitting on its legs?
If spacecraft lander is all good then India would become the fourth country to have soft landing on the moon’s surface only the former Soviet Union, the U.S. and China have managed that without damaging their vehicles but no other country have tried to land on the south pole of the moon, if all goes well then India would be the first to land on the south pole of the lunar surface.
Scientists are analysing the data, let’s see what happen next.