Vikram hasn’t crashed: D Sasikumar

Lander Vikram has not crashed as the communicationchannel between orbiter and Lander is still on, said former ISRO Director DSasikumar. He said that the communication loss with Vikram lander may not havebeen due to crash-landing.

It may be mentioned here that after a successfuljourney of 48 days from Sriharikota to the Moon, the last few minutes of theChandrayaan-2 Mission proved to be disappointing to ISRO as it lostcommunications with the Vikram lander when it was about 2.1 kilometres from thesurface of the Moon.

"We have to find out from the communication data whether it is a soft landing or it is a crash landing. In my opinion, it is not a crash landing because the communication channel is on between the lander and the orbiter. It should be intact. So, let us hope after the analysis done, we may be able to get the final figure," said D Sasikumar. However, ISRO has not made any official announcement yet as it is analyzing the data.

This is Mission Control Centre. #VikramLander descent was as planned and normal performance was observed up to an altitude of 2.1 km. Subsequently, communication from Lander to the ground stations was lost. Data is being analyzed.#ISRO

— ISRO (@isro) September 6, 2019

The lander – Vikram successfully separated fromChandrayaan-2 Orbiter on September 2 and was planned to land on the far side ofthe moon. However, the Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter continues to orbit the Moon.