In September, India’s historic attempt for a soft landing of their spacecraft and rover, the Chandrayaan-2 Vikram lander, ended prematurely when they lost communication with the craft. Now, images from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter reveal the crash site and final resting place of the mission.
NASA included colored dots to show the initial impact site of the lander, as well as the debris field created by the crash and the upturned regolith, or moon dust.
The lander was expected to settle about 373 miles from the lunar south pole on September 7, but the team lost contact with the craft shortly before touchdown.
An image mosaic collected ten days later was released to the public for citizen scientists to scan for signs of the lander. An Indian engineer and amateur astronomer Shanmuga Subramanian identified the debris field and contacted NASA. They were able to confirm the finding by comparing before and after images provided by the orbiter.
“As far as I am concerned the Chandrayaan-2 mission was a success. The crash landing of Vikram was sad… but it has got people talking about ISRO and the lander… that is a positive,” Subramanian told CNN affiliate CNN-News 18, referring to the Indian Space Research Organization.
“I feel elated that NASA acknowledged my contribution… I used NASA’s images to make my observations. It is difficult to spot debris on moon… I could only spot one piece of debris,” he added.