Vikram lander not in ‘field of view’, NASA orbiter camera fails to capture its image

NEWDELHI: Even as Indians pinned their hopes on NASA for getting one more glimpse of the Vikram lander before the lunar night begins, the US space agency has said that the lander may not have been in the field of view of the camera on-board its orbiter.

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which has been orbiting the moon for 10 years, passed over the Vikram landing site on Tuesday. “The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) acquired images around the targeted site, but the exact location of the lander was not known so the lander may not be in the camera field of view,” said Joshua A Handal, public affairs officer, planetary science division, NASA, in an email.

Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) lost contact with the lander of the country’s second lunar mission Chandrayaan-2, minutes before touchdown on the moon on Sept 7. The LROC team will compare the images taken on September 17 with previous ones of the site taken by it to see if the lander is visible. The results of the flyover will be made public after validation, analysis, and review. Currently, it is the lunar dusk at the site where Vikram was supposed to make a soft-landing on September 7. This means the sun is lower in the horizon with relief features casting long shadows. “LRO flew over the area of the Vikram landing site on Sept. 17 when the local lunar time was near dusk; large shadows covered much of the area... It may be in the shadow...,” Handal said.

Experts agree that the chances of the LRO spotting the lander during the current flyover are slim. “It will be difficult to find the lander right now as the angle of the sun will be low. And, if the lander is close to a relief feature, then it will get hidden in its shadow. The LRO will have better chances in its next flyover,” said Jatan Mehta, a former science officer with TeamIndus, a Bengaluru-based private company that aims to send a lander-rover to the moon.

EXPERTS SAY THE CHANCES OF THE LRO SPOTTING THE LANDER DURING THE CURRENT FLYOVER ARE SLIM