India’s crashed rover found in moon

NEW DELHI: In September, India’s historic attempt for a soft landing of their spacecraft and rover, the Chandrayaan-2 Vikram lander, ended prematurely when they lost communication with the craft. Now, images from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA} Lunar Reconnaissance resting place of the mission.

NASA included colored dots to show the initial impact site of the lander, as well as the debris upturned regolith, or moon dust.

The lander was expected to settle about 373 miles from the lunar south pole on September 7, but the team lost contact with the craft shortly before touchdown.

An image mosaic collected ten days later was released to the public for citizen scientists to scan for signs of the lander.

Shanmuga Subramanian iden - tacted NASA, according to the agency. They were able to con before and after images provided by the orbiter.

the northwest of the impact site. The images show dark streaks, dots of debris and a brighter halo of impact.

The landing would have ushered India into the small collection of nations that have achieved successful soft lunar landings, including the United States, China and the former Soviet Union.

And the mission was targeted to land on the far side of the moon, a largely unexplored region.

The next phase would have been a rover traveling on the lunar surface and collecting mineral and chemical samples for

The automated rover is named Pragyan (meaning “wisdom”).

The Chandrayaan- 2, which means “moon vehicle” in Sanskrit, took off from the Satish Dhawan Space Center at Sriharikota in southern Andhra Pradesh on July 22. Weighing 3.8 tons and carrying 13 payloads, it had three elements: lunar orbiter, lander and rover.