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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Chandrayaan-2: ISRO racing against time to get ‘Vikram’ back to life

The lander Vikram, with rover ‘Pragyan’ tucked inside it, lost communication with the ground-stations during its final descent, just 2.1 kms above the lunar surface

ISRO is racing against time to spring ‘Vikram’ back to life and salvage the lander-rover part of the Chandrayaan-2 mission. The lander Vikram, with rover ‘Pragyan’ tucked inside it, lost communication with the ground-stations during its final descent, just 2.1 kms above the lunar surface, minutes before the planned soft-landing in the early hours of Saturday.

ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) said on Sunday Vikram had a “hard-landing”. The Bengaluru-headquarterd space agency on Tuesday again confirmed that the lander has been located on the lunar surface by the on-board cameras of the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter which is circling the moon in its intended orbit.

“All possible efforts are being made to establish communication with (the) lander”, ISRO further said in a tweet. A senior ISRO official associated with the mission said: “The images from the orbiter camera showed that Vikram is in single piece lying on the lunar surface; not broken into pieces. it is in a tilted position. It’s not in its four legs, as usual”…

How Chandrayaan-2’s lander Vikram will soft-land on the Moon? Isro explains

Hours after touchdown, rover Pragyaan will roll out from inside the lander to carry out intense probe of the moon soil with its two payloads.

The crucial landing of ‘Vikram’, Chandrayaan-2’s moon lander, will be carried out by at least eight onboard equipment in a coordinated manner.

‘Vikram’ with rover ‘Pragyaan’ housed inside is scheduled for a powered-descent between 1 am and 2 am on September 7, followed by its touchdown between 1.30 am and 2.30 am. Ahead of the proposed touchdown in the early hours of Saturday, the Isroexplained through a video how it will take place.

The space agency explained that the machine will be fitted with at least three cameras, Lander Position Detection Camera (LPDC), Lander Horizontal Velocity Camera (LHVC) and Lander Hazardous Detection and Avoidance Camera (LHDAC), to ensure its soft landing on the lunar surface. There will be two KA Band Altimeter-1 and KA Band Altimeter-2.

The KA Band stands for Kurtz-above band, which is part of the Kurtz (K) band in the microwave band of the electromagnetic spectrum. There will be a Laser Altimeter (LASA), an instrument that is used to learn about the topography, or the shape of the surface of a planet. It will operate through the orbitor revolving around the moon above the lander….

Isro conducts Chandrayaan-2 Moon lander’s deorbit manoeuvre successfully

Deorbiting manoeuvres involve the firing of the spacecraft’s engines to slow down its pace and bring it closer to the Moon’s surface

After successfully separating India’s first Moon lander, Vikram, on Monday, the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) conducted its first deorbit manoeuvre successfully on Tuesday. The manoeuvre began at 0850 hours and had a duration of 4 seconds.

Isro officials said that after Tuesday’s deorbit manoeuvre, the lander had achieved a 109 x 120 km orbit around the Moon. One more deorbit manoeuvre will be conducted on Wednesday and the orbit that the lander will achieve after this will be 39 X 110 km. The effort is to soft-land the lander in the South polar region of the Moon between two craters — Manzinus C and Simpelius N — on September 7, 2019. Deorbiting manoeuvres involve the firing of the spacecraft’s engines to slow down its pace and bring it closer to the Moon’s surface.

ALSO READ: Chandrayaan-2’s lander, Vikram, leaves orbiter for the Moon’s surface

Earlier, Isro Chairman K Sivan said that using deorbiting manoeuvres, the space agency would rotate the lander to the opposite side and burn all the five engines for a short while to reduce the distance between the lander and the Moon’s surface, before rotating it back to the previous position. In the second deorbiting manoeuvre, the agency will once again rotate the lander to the opposite side and conduct a small burn of the engines to further bring down the orbit.

The lander will then make a powered descent to the Moon’s surface in the unexplored south pole on September 7. Sivan said that the powered descent will be carried out in a 15-minute window between 0130 hours and 0230 hours IST on September 7, through which Vikram will touch down on the surface of the Moon…

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