City
Epaper

NASA finds Vikram moonlander's debris

By IANS | Updated: December 3, 2019 06:10 IST

NASA has found the crash site and debris of India's Chandrayaan-2 Vikram moon lander following a tip from an Indian space enthusiast who examined pictures of the area of the moon taken by a US orbiting camera.

Open in App

The site was located by Shanmuga Subramanian, who on his own scoured the pictures taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbital Camera (LROC), NASA and Arizona State University announced on Monday confirming the find.

The first mosaic image of the likely crash site made from pictures taken by the LROC on September 17 was downloaded by several people to look for signs of the Vikram, NASA said.

One of them, Subramanian, contacted the LROC project with a positive identification of debris, it said.

Arizona State University (ASU), where the LROC project is located, said, "After receiving this tip the LROC team confirmed the identification by comparing before and after images."

When the images for the first mosaic were acquired on September 17, the impact point was poorly illuminated and could not easily be identified, it said.

But two image sequences were acquired on October 14 and 15, and on November 11 were better.

The university said that based on Subramanian's tip, the LROC team scoured the surrounding area in the new mosaics and found the impact site and the debris field.

The impact site is located at 70.8810 degree S, 22.7840 degrees E, at an elevation of 834 metres, it said.

"The debris first located by Shanmuga is about 750 meters northwest of the main crash site," ASU said.

Vikram lost contact with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) following its launch from Chandraayan-2 moon orbiter on September 6 when it tried to make a softlanding near the moon's south pole.

(Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@.in and followed on Twitter @arulouis)

( With inputs from IANS )

Tags: VikramNasaArizona State UniversityASU
Open in App

Related Stories

MaharashtraMaharashtra Assembly: Dada Bhuse Criticises Finance Department's Strictures on Science Scheme

InternationalNASA Layoffs: 20% or 3,870 Employees to Exit US Space Agency

Space Surprise: Planet Made of Diamonds Found, Five Times Earth’s Size

InternationalNASA Job Cut: Over 2,000 Senior Officials to Exit Due to Trump-Era Budget Cuts

InternationalAxiom-4 Mission Lifts Off: India’s Shubhanshu Shukla, 3 Others Begin Journey to Space Station Aboard SpaceX Dragon (Watch Video)

टेकमेनिया Realted Stories

TechnologyGujarat to draw strategic roadmap to strengthen cybersecurity of energy infrastructure

TechnologyCMFRI observes 'Swachhta Pakhwada' with cleanliness drives, community outreach

Technology'No communication received': Vodafone Idea on Cabinet relief reports

TechnologyAuto PLI scheme sees Rs 35,657 crore investment, incentives worth Rs 2,322 crore disbursed

TechnologyIndia’s broadband subscriber base surpasses 1 billion mark in Nov: Govt