New Delhi: U.S. space agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has officially declared moon lander Vikram, that lost connection with ISRO on September 7, had a hard-landing on the lunar surface.
NASA on Thursday night released a set of hazy lunar surface images of the southern site where the lander probably crashed.
“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.
The LRO, orbiting moon since September 2009, has a camera with 50-cm high resolution and goes around in an eccentric orbit of 20 km x 165 km.
The remaining Indian orbiting module has a camera with a 30-cm resolution. ISRO already has pictures sent by it from its 100-km height soon after the landing failed.
