Chandrayaan 2: Vikram hard-landed within 500 meters of landing site: Govt

In a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, Jitendra Singh, said the first phase of descent was performed from an altitude of 30 kms to 7.4 kms

Chandrayaan-2’s Vikram lander hard-landed as reduction in velocity during its descent was more than the designed parameters, the government said on Wednesday throwing more light on ISRO’s dashed hopes of making a soft landing on the lunar surface in its maiden attempt.

In a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, Jitendra Singh, the minister of state in the Prime Minister’s Office, who looks after the department of space, said the first phase of descent was performed nominally from an altitude of 30 kms to 7.4 kms above the moon’s surface and velocity was reduced from 1,683 metres per second to 146 metres per second.

“During the second phase of descent, the reduction in velocity was more than the designed value. Due to this deviation, the initial conditions at the start of the fine braking phase were beyond the designed parameters. As a result, Vikram hard-landed within 500 metres of the designated landing site,” he said.

Singh, however, said most components of technology demonstration, including the launch, orbital critical maneuvers, lander separation, de-boost and rough braking phase were successfully accomplished.

With regards to the scientific objectives, all the eight state-of-the-art scientific instruments of the orbiter are performing according to the design and providing valuable scientific data. Due to the precise launch and orbital maneuvers, the mission life of the orbiter is increased to seven years, he said…

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Vikram had hard landing; NASA releases images of Chandrayaan 2 landing site

Vikram was scheduled to touch down on September. 7. This event was India’s first attempt at a soft landing on the Moon

NASA on Friday released high-resolution images captured by its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) during its flyby of the lunar region where India’s ambitious Chandrayaan 2 mission attempted a soft landing near the Moon’s uncharted south pole, and found Vikram had a hard landing.

The Vikram lander module attempted a soft landing on a small patch of lunar highland smooth plains between Simpelius N and Manzinus C craters before losing communication with ISRO on September 7. “Vikram had a hard landing and the precise location of the spacecraft in the lunar highlands has yet to be determined, NASA said. 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.

Vikram was scheduled to touch down on September. 7. This event was India’s first attempt at a soft landing on the Moon. The site was located about 600 kilometres from the south pole in a relatively ancient terrain, according to the US space agency.

The LRO passed over the landing site on September 17 and 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…

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