Chandrayaan-2’s Pragyan Rover is intact on the Moon’s surface and has rolled a few metres from the remains of moon lander Vikram, tweeted space enthusiast Shanmuga Subramanian, who located moon lander Vikram’s debris after touchdown and then disintegrated due to a rough landing.
K Sivan, Chairman of the Indian Space Research said, “We have received communication from him (Subramanian). Our experts are analysing the same,” as reported by IANS.
Chandrayaan2's Pragyan "ROVER" intact on Moon's surface & has rolled out few metres from the skeleton Vikram lander whose payloads got disintegrated due to rough landing | More details in below tweets @isro #Chandrayaan2 #VikramLander #PragyanRover (1/4) pic.twitter.com/iKSHntsK1f
— Shan (Shanmuga Subramanian) (@Ramanean) August 1, 2020
The debris might be from one of the earlier payloads, tweeted Subramanian. The debris found by NASA might be of other payloads, transmitting antenna and thrusters.
In a series of tweets, Subramanian added that commands were sent to Vikram moon lander for days and there was a possibility that these commands were received, however, it was unable to communicate back to earth.
Update: It seems the commands were sent to lander blindly for days & there is a distinct possibility that lander could have received commands and relayed it to the rover.. but lander was not able to communicate it back to the earth @uncertainquark
— Shan (Shanmuga Subramanian) (@Ramanean) August 1, 2020
The Vikram moon lander lost contact with ISRO post its launch from Chandrayaan-2 moon orbiter on September 6 last year.
Deccan Herald is on WhatsApp Channels| Join now for Breaking News & Editor's Picks