BENGALURU, Sept 8 - The Chandrayaan-2�s Vikram module has been located on the lunar surface and it must have been a hard-landing, ISRO Chairman K Sivan said on Sunday, in an admission that the planned soft-landing wasnt successful. �Yes, we have located the lander on the lunar surface. It must have been a hard-landing�, Sivan told PTI.
The image of the lander rover �Pragyan� is housed inside it was captured by on-board camera of Chandrayaan-2 orbiter, which is healthy, safe and functioning normally in the intended orbit around the Moon.
The orbiter camera is the highest resolution camera (0.3m) in any lunar mission so far and shall provide high resolution images which will be immensely useful to the global scientific community, the Bengaluru-headquartered space agency had said earlier.
India�s bold mission to soft-land on the moon suffered a setback with the �Vikram� module losing communication with ground stations, just 2.1 km from the lunar surface during its final descent in the early hours of Saturday.
Considered as the �most complex� stage of the country�s second expedition to the moon, the lander was on a powered descent for a soft landing when it lost contact. � PTI
