Last day today for ISRO to establish communication with Vikram Lander

Bengaluru, Sep 19: ISRO has got just one day to make contact with the Vikram Lander. The last hope to revive the lander will end today as the period of 14 Earth days in the South pole region of the Moon where the land made a hard landing on September 7 gets over today.

From Saturday the 14 Earth nights in the South Pole will begin and freezing temperatures of over -240 degree Celsius would be witnessed. This would damage the lander and the chance to energise the lander with solar energy will be lost.

Lander Vikram, with rover Pragyan, housed inside it, lost communication with ground-stations early on September 7 during its final descent, just 2.1 km above the lunar surface, minutes before the planned touch-down on the Moon.

Efforts to re-establish the link has been going on since then.

On September 8, ISRO said the lander was spotted on the lunar surface by camera on-board of the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter.

The lander, designed to execute a soft-landing on the lunar surface, and rover have a mission life of one Lunar day, which is equivalent to 14 earth days.

The space agency after losing contact with the lander had said that till date, 90 to 95 per cent of the Chandrayaan-2 mission objectives have been accomplished and it would continue to contribute to Lunar science, notwithstanding the loss of communication with the Lander.

It had also noted that the precise launch and mission management has ensured a long life of almost 7 years instead of the planned one year for the orbiter.