The technician said the rover had “unwound a few meters from the skeleton of the Vikram lander”.
New Delhi:
Chennai-based engineer Shanmuga Subramanian, who was credited by NASA last year for spotting debris from the Chandrayaan 2 lander, has come up with a new find. The 33-year-old technician claimed to have spotted the Chandrayaan 2 rover – Pragyan – which appeared to be “intact” on the surface of the moon.
In a series of tweets accompanied by a photo taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbital (LRO), Mr. Subramanian claimed that the rover had “unwound a few feet from the skeleton of the Vikram lander.”
Pragyan “ROVER” of Chandrayaan2 intact on the surface of the Moon and unrolled a few meters from the Vikram skeleton lander whose payloads disintegrated due to a hard landing | More details in the tweets below @isro# Chandrayaan2#VikramLander#PragyanRover (1/4) pic.twitter.com/iKSHntsK1f
– Shan (Shanmuga Subramanian) (@Ramanean) Aug 1, 2020
The space enthusiast also said the lander may have received the commands sent to it from Earth and could have passed them to the rover as well. However, he may have failed to communicate with the earth.
Rover PNG Image – can be downloaded here https://t.co/9z6wanh8xU and also the cube file which can be viewed by USGS ISIS3 software https://t.co/VhUejZlq9upic.twitter.com/nxJlLcpYIe
– Shan (Shanmuga Subramanian) (@Ramanean) Aug 1, 2020
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) had lost contact with the Vikram lander after it launched from the Chandrayaan 2 lunar orbiter on September 6, as it attempted to make a soft landing near the South Pole of the Moon.
Mr Subramanian also sent ISRO his latest find, of which he shared a screenshot on Twitter.
India expected to make space history with the Rs. 1000 crore Chandrayaan 2 mission.
A successful soft landing on the moon’s surface would have made the country only the fourth – after the United States, Russia and China – to achieve the feat. It would also have made India the first country to make a soft landing near the South Pole on its first attempt.
