ISRO Found Chandrayaan-2 Vikram Lander Before NASA, Claims ISRO Chief

Chandrayaan-2 Vikram lander was recently spotted by NASA, where the debris of the lander was discovered by an Indian techie. However, ISRO is now claiming that it had located the Vikram lander much before and has rejected NASA's claim on finding the Moon lander. ISRO chief said that the lander was located and had also been declared on the website.

ISRO Found Chandrayaan-2 Vikram Lander

Here's what happened. NASA released some images of the Moon's southern region, where the Vikram lander was supposed to land. The image pointed out the debris of the crashed site of the lander. Moreover, the crash location was found by an Indian engineer, Shanmuga Subramanian based out of Chennai. NASA too credited the engineer for his contribution.

NASA also said that the location spotted by Subramanian is roughly 750 meters northwest of the main crash site. Ever since the Vikram lander lost all communication on September 7, NASA has been helping ISRO in trying to find the lander. NASA's LRO conducted two flybys in an attempt to find Vikram.

However, ISRO has another angle to the story. The premier agency says that the Vikram lander was spotted long back. If we look back, ISRO had tweeted on September 10 (three days after the Vikram lander crash) saying that the Vikram lander has been located, "but no communication with it yet. All possible efforts are being made to establish communication with the lander."

If we take a look at the ISRO website, the agency has mentioned that the lander was located three months ago. However, the coordinates of the crashed Vikram lander weren't updated.

A couple of weeks ago, the Indian government had also acknowledged that the Vikram lander had crashed with a hard landing on the Moon's surface. In a Parliamentary session, the Union Minister Jitendra Singh had elaborated on the details of the Vikram lander's descent. The minister said that the reduced velocity during the descent didn't match with the lander's parameters, resulting in the hard landing.