No sign of Vikram lander of Chandrayaan-2 was found by NASA in the pictures snapped during a recent flyby of the lunar area by of its Moon orbiter, as said by the US space agency. The Vikram lander, as well as the rover, had an operational life of 1 lunar day that is correspondent to 14 earth days and terminated in September. ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization), on Sept 7, undertook Vikram’s soft landing on the unexplored lunar South Pole, prior to losing contact with the lander.
The Project Scientist for the LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) mission, Noah Edward Petro, stated, “The LRO pictured the region of the aimed Chandrayaan-2 Vikram touching down the location on October 14 but didn’t find any proof of the lander.” Petro stated that the pictures were cautiously scrutinized by the camera team and used the change detection method—utilizing a ratio of a picture from before the landing effort to the one obtained on October 14. This technique, he stated, is utilized for locating new meteorite blasts on the Moon that also assisted in spotting the Beresheet lander.
Deputy Project Scientist LRO Mission, John Keller, stated, “It is likely that Vikram is situated in a shadow or beyond of the search region. Owing to the low latitude, around 70° south, the region is never entirely shadows-free.”
On the other end, a mobile robot will be sent to the Moon’s South Pole by NASA to look for water, as recently declared by NASA. The rover, the VIPER, or Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, is of a golf cart’s size and the soil environments of the Moon will be sampled by it to hunt for an indication of ice and water. The tool will gather information for around 100 Days that would be utilized to generate the Moon’s foremost global water resource maps, as said by the space agency.