The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on Thursday released high resolution images of the landing site of Chandrayaan-2 lander Vikram.
NASA had stated in a notification that Vikram, attempted a landing on a small patch of lunar highland smooth plains between Simpelius N and Manzinus C craters on September 7, 2019.
Vikram had a hard landing and the precise location of the spacecraft in the lunar highlands has yet to be determined, the notification stated.
Also read: Chandrayaan-2’s lander Vikram hits hard on moon’s surface; unbroken: ISRO
It also stated that the images were captured from a Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) Quickmap fly-around of the targeted landing site image width is about 150 kilometers across the center.
The organization also mentioned in its Twitter handle that the images were taken at dusk and more images will be taken in October during a flyby in favorable lighting.
Also read: Despite landing setback Chandrayaan-2 not a failure
NASA tweeted:
‘Our @LRO_NASA mission imaged the targeted landing site of India’s Chandrayaan-2 lander, Vikram. The images were taken at dusk, and the team was not able to locate the lander. More images will be taken in October during a flyby in favorable lighting.’
It may be mentioned that the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) lost contact with the Vikram lander around 2.1 km over the moon’s surface.