Nasa to share images of Vikram’s moon landing site with Isro
THE US SPACE AGENCY IS ALSO ATTEMPTING TO RE-ESTABLISH COMMUNICATION WITH VIKRAM LANDER
NEWDELHI:US space agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration or Nasa, said it would share “before and after” images of the location where Chandrayaan-2’s Vikram lander made a hard-landing in the early hours of September 7.
“NASA will share any before and after flyover imagery of the area around the targeted Chandrayaan-2 Vikram Lander landing site to support analysis by the Indian Space Research Organization,” a Nasa statement to the New York Times said.
The US space agency is also attempting to re-establish communication with Vikram lander, which has not transmitted any signal since September 7.
NASA’S Deep Space Network is sending radio signals in the hope of re-establishing communication with the lander, while Isro is still using the Indian Deep Space Network antennas at Bylalu near Bengaluru to communicate with the lander.
The Indian lander-rover was carrying on board a NASA passive experiment called, the laser retroreflector array, that reflects laser beams from Earth. An analysis of the round-trip time of the laser helps to caliberate location systems for navigation of spacecraft.
This Nasa payload was also aboard the Israeli lunar mission, Beresheet, which crashed into the surface of the moon in April this year.
“These radio signals are sent in the hope of establishing some form of communication with the lander. If a communication is established, scientists will at least be able to tell what systems are working and assess what might have gone wrong during the last moments. Whether they will be able to send any commands or not, I am not sure,” said Dr Nirupam Roy, assistant professor of physics at the Indian Institute of Science (IISC), Bengaluru.
Apart from the radio signal, the Nasa will also be sharing the images from its own Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which will pass over the landing site of the Vikram on September 17.
Isro has to try and locate the lander before the lunar night [equal to 14 Earth days] begins on September 21, as the lander runs on solar power, and would go on sleep mode.