The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on Friday, September 27, released pictures of the lunar site where Chandrayaan 2 lander Vikram had attempted to soft-land. The US space agency said it could not find the location of the lander.
![The Chandrayaan-2 lander, Vikram, attempted a landing Sept. 7 (Sept. 6 in the United States), on a small patch of lunar highland smooth plains between Simpelius N and Manzinus C craters. NASA image](https://data1.ibtimes.co.in/en/full/723124/nasa-image.png?h=450&l=50&t=40)
Images taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) showed that Vikram attempted a landing on September 7 between Simpelius N and Manzinus C craters. "Vikram had a hard landing and the precise location of the spacecraft in the lunar highlands has yet to be determined," said NASA.
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. More: https://t.co/1bMVGRKslp pic.twitter.com/kqTp3GkwuM
— NASA (@NASA) September 26, 2019
Describing the site, the US space agency stated that it is located about 600 kilometres from the south pole in a "relatively ancient terrain". The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) took the pictures when it passed over the landing site on September 17.
Despite the orbiter's high-resolution images, NASA stated that since it was dusk when the image was captured, large shadows prevented a clear image of the terrain, adding that "it was possible that the Vikram lander is hiding in a shadow."
Last week, NASA stated it was analysing the images and had cautioned about the large shadows on the lunar surface due to harsh light conditions.
![A wide view of a series of Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter Camera's narrow-angle camera images collected on Sept. 17 showing the area of the targeted Vikram landing site. Vikram lander](https://data1.ibtimes.co.in/en/full/723125/vikram-lander.png?h=450&l=50&t=40)
"The lighting will be favourable when LRO passes over the site in October and once again attempts to locate and image the lander," the space agency stated.
The Chandryaan-2's lander Vikram lost the connection with ground stations just 2.1 km ahead of a soft landing on September 6. The lander carried a rover called Pragyan that was to have conducted experiments on the moon's surface. The experiments were supposed to take one lunar day, which is equal to 14 Earth days.