ALL NOT LOST… YET

ISRO reiterates moon lander Vikram located by Orbiter

India Post News Service & Agencies

BENGALURU/CHENNAI: Though India’s second Moon mission Chandrayan-2 missed making a soft landing on the lunar south pole by a whisker, hope remains with the Indian space agency reiterating September 10 that moon lander Vikram has been located by the Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter. “#VikramLander has been located by the orbiter of #Chandrayaan2, but no communication with it yet,” the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) tweeted.

“All possible efforts are being made to establish communication with lander,” ISRO said. This comes after ISRO Chairman K. Sivan said September 8 that the Vikram module has been located on the lunar surface and it must have been a hard-landing, ISRO chairman K Sivan said Sunday. “Yes, we have located the lander on the lunar surface,” Sivan told PTI news agency. “It must have been a hard-landing.”

On September 9, an ISRO official said that the ‘Vikram’ lander is lying on the lunar surface as a single piece, unbroken and is in a tilted position following a hard landing. Vikram, which encases rover Pragyan, went out of contact during its final descent, when it was just 2.1 km above the lunar surface, in the early hours of September 7. “The lander is there (on lunar surface) as a single piece, not broken into pieces. It’s in a tilted position,” the ISRO official associated with the mission claimed.

Though the lander hit the surface hard while landing, it was still very close to the scheduled touchdown site according to the images sent by the orbiter’s onboard camera, he said. “We are making all-out efforts to see whether communication can be re-established with the lander,” the official said. “An ISRO team is the on the job at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC),” he added.

Now, ISRO is racing against time to spring ‘Vikram’ back to life and salvage the lander-rover part of the Chandrayaan-2 mission. A senior ISRO official associated with the mission said: “The images from the orbiter camera showed that Vikram is in single piece lying on the lunar surface; not broken into pieces. it is in a tilted position. It’s not in its four legs, as usual”.

This official added on condition of anonymity: “It’s not upside down. It’s lying on its side”. ISRO officially did not comment on the condition of the lander. Chandrayaan-2 comprises an orbiter, lander (Vikram) and rover (Pragyan). The mission life of the lander and rover is one lunar day, which is equal to 14 earth days. Sivan said September 7 evening that the space agency would try to restore link with the lander for 14 days and it has been reiterating the resolve since then.

An ISRO official said Vikram hit the lunar surface at a place about 500 metres away from where it was originally planned to touch down. But there was no official word on this from ISRO. Sources said an ISRO team is trying to see if they can reorient the antennas of the lander in such a way that communication can be restored. “Efforts are going on”, they said.

According to a senior ISRO official, orientation may have been lost during the final descent when velocity was reduced, due to “sensor or on-board software or computer anomaly”. “A committee is looking into what has gone wrong. They will come out with answers soon,” this official said. Meanwhile, flawless and precise launch and efficient management of the Chandrayaan-2 mission – till the lander ‘Vikram’ lost communication with ground-stations -, has paid rich dividends to the ISRO on the orbiter front.

The 2,379-kg orbiter whose mission life was designed to be one year would now be able to function for almost seven years. “Enough fuel is available with the orbiter. Up to (lunar) orbit insertion, we did not have any flaw. Additional fuel which was anticipated was not used at all. Everything went as per the plan. Additional fuel is available with us (on-board the orbiter)”, an ISRO official said.

Another ISRO official said, “One of the limiting factors is on-board fuel availability. Because of the performance of GSLV-MK III (which launched the spacecraft) and efficient mission management, we have enough fuel for continuing it forward for seven years.” The space agency also said the precise launch and mission management has ensured a long life of almost seven years instead of the planned one year for the orbiter. ISRO had said 90 to 95 per cent of the Chandrayaan-2 mission objectives have been accomplished and it would continue to contribute to lunar science notwithstanding the loss of communication with the lander which hit lunar surface after failing in its planned attempt to soft-land in the early hours of September 7.

Noting that Chandrayaan-2 mission was a highly complex one, which represented a significant technological leap compared to the previous missions of ISRO, the space agency said it brought together an orbiter, lander and rover to explore the unexplored south pole of the Moon. This was a unique mission which aimed at studying not just one area of the Moon but all the areas combining the exosphere, the surface as well as the sub-surface of the moon in a single mission, it added.