The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), after the failed landing of Vikram lander on lunar surface on September 7, has left no stone unturned to establish communication with it. Amid the gloomy predicament, ISRO's American counterpart the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) lunar probe could bring a ray of hope by sharing the images of the lander.
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) will do a flyby across the expected landing site of the Vikram lander on Tuesday, and is likely to release the images that will shed more light on ISRO's mission.
“NASA will share any before and after flyover imagery of the area around the targeted Chandrayaan-2 Vikram lander landing site to support analysis by the Indian Space Research Organisation,”Noah Petro, the LRO’s project scientist, was quoted as saying by space news portal Spaceflight Now.
After its hard landing on the lunar surface, the the control room lost conatct with the lander and was hard to locate until September 10, when ISRO confirmed its sighting in a tweet.
#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.#ISRO
— ISRO (@isro) September 10, 2019
Earlier, in an ISRO appreciation tweet, NASA had expressed solidarity with the Indian space agency.
Space is hard. We commend @ISRO’s attempt to land their #Chandrayaan2 mission on the Moon’s South Pole. You have inspired us with your journey and look forward to future opportunities to explore our solar system together. https://t.co/pKzzo9FDLL
— NASA (@NASA) September 7, 2019
NASA's LRO has previously shared aerial images of the Apollo 11 landing site on the moon, showing more than 40-year-old footprints the astronauts left on the lunar surface during humanity's maiden successful lunar landing in 1969.
More recently, NASA's LRO has been imaging the Chinese landers Chang'e 3 and Chang'e 4 landing sites and also located the crash site of the Israeli Beresheet spacecraft.
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