Chandrayaan 2: NASA releases pictures of Vikram's landing site

Days after Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman, K Sivan said that the Chandrayaan-2 mission achieved 98% of its objectives, NASA on Friday released pictures of the landing site of Chandrayaan 2. Releasing the first set of pictures, NASA said that the team was unable to locate the Vikram lander and will try again in October. The NASA statement also said that Vikram lander may be hiding in shadows. "It was dusk when the landing area was imaged and thus, large shadows covered much of the terrain. It is possible that the Vikram lander is hiding in a shadow. The lighting will be favourable when LRO passes over the site in October and once again attempts to locate and image the lander," NASA said. 

READ: Chandrayaan 2: NASA says Vikram lander may be hiding in shadows

Here are the pictures captured by NASA:  

READ: Chandrayaan 2 | 'Vikram must have done a hard-landing': ISRO to PTI

The scene was captured from a Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera Quickmap fly-around of the targeted landing site image width is about 150 kilometres across the centre. The LRO passed over the landing site on September 17. It acquired a set of high-resolution images of the area; so far the LROC team has not been able to locate or image the lander. LRO will next fly over the landing site on October 14 when lighting conditions will be more favourable, John Keller, Deputy Project Scientist Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission, Goddard Space Flight Centre, told PTI via email.

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India's moon mission: Chandrayaan 2

Chandrayaan 2 is India's moon mission with which it attempted to land-soft at the south pole of the moon. As Vikram lander of Chandrayaan 2 was about to touchdown the lunar surface, in the morning at 1:50 AM, ISRO's Deep Space Antenna lost communication with Chandrayaan-2's lander- Vikram. The lander had descended from 30km to 2km smoothly, informed ISRO. During the final smooth braking stage, it had lost communication with Mission Control. Vikram was aimed at soft-landing on the moon, making India the fourth country to do so.   

READ: Chandrayaan 2 orbiter in good shape, K Sivan gives an update