India Today : Sep 16, 2019, 02:02 PM
It has been nearly 10 days since the Indian Space Research Organisation lost contact with Chandrayaan-2's Vikram lander during its descent on to the surface of the Moon. And, hope for re-establishing contact with the Vikram lander is fading fast.When Vikram attempted its Moon landing in the early hours of September 7, it was the beginning of the lunar day. One lunar day, which was the span of Vikram and its rover Pragyaan's mission live, is equal to around 14 Earth days.What this means is that by September 20-21, night will have descended on the part of the Moon where Vikram is currently located. And with no sunlight to power Vikram, the Chandrayaan-2 lander will likely go silent... forever.Vikram attempted landing on the Moon early September 7.
- Initially, everything went according to plan. Vikram began its descent on to the Moon shortly before 1:40 am on September 7. The Chandrayaan-2 drastically reduced its speed as it began lowering its attitude.
- Around 10 minutes after Vikram began its descent, the Isro command centre in Bengaluru that was tracking the lander's progress went silent. Worry began to creep up on the faces of the scientists gathered there as it increasingly became clear that something had gone wrong with Vikram's descent.
- At 2:18 am, more than half-an-hour after Vikram began its descent, a composed Isro chief K Sivan took to a microphone at the command centre and confirmed the worse: Contact with Vikram had been lost.