The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) isn’t giving up hope for its lost lunar lander just yet. The space agency will keep trying to establish contact with the Virkam lander for 14 days, according to the Times of India.
On September 6, the spacecraft was scheduled to have a soft landing in the moon’s south pole region. But as it neared the one-mile marker above the surface, communication cut out with mission control in India. The lander hasn’t been heard from since, and engineers suspect Virkam hit the surface much harder than anticipated.
Chandrayaan-2 was intended to be a multi-part mission, and a follow-up to India’s first lunar mission, Chandrayaan-1. In this latest attempt to study the moon, India was focused on the south pole region, launching an orbiter, the Virkam lander, and a rover named Pragyan on July 22.
Early in the landing sequence last week, everything in the ...
