Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 7 submissions in the queue.
posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday December 03 2019, @09:56AM   Printer-friendly
from the much-harder-than-finding-a-needle-in-a-haystack dept.

NASA (USA's National Aeronautics and Space Administration) reports that India's Vikram Lander has been Found:

The Chandrayaan 2 Vikram lander was targeted for a highland smooth plain about 600 kilometers from the south pole; unfortunately the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) lost contact with their lander shortly before the scheduled touchdown (Sept. 7 in India, Sept. 6 in the United States).  Despite the loss, getting that close to the surface was an amazing achievement. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera team released the first mosaic (acquired Sept. 17) of the site on Sept. 26 and many people have downloaded the mosaic to search for signs of Vikram. Shanmuga Subramanian contacted the LRO project with a positive identification of debris. After receiving this tip, the LROC team confirmed the identification by comparing before and after images. When the images for the first mosaic were acquired the impact point was poorly illuminated and thus not easily identifiable. Two subsequent image sequences were acquired on Oct. 14 and 15, and Nov. 11. The LROC team scoured the surrounding area in these new mosaics and found the impact site (70.8810°S,  22.7840°E, 834 m elevation) and associated debris field. The November mosaic had the best pixel scale (0.7 meter) and lighting conditions (72° incidence angle).

The debris first located by Shanmuga is about 750 meters northwest of the main crash site and was a single bright pixel identification in that first mosaic (1.3 meter pixels, 84° incidence angle). The November mosaic shows best the impact crater, ray and extensive debris field. The three largest pieces of debris are each about 2x2 pixels and cast a one pixel shadow.

See the NASA article for before/after pictures of the impact site.

Previously:
NASA Lunar Probe Will Help Search for India's Lost Moon Lander
Time is Running Out for India to Establish Contact With its Lunar Lander
India Locates Lander Lost on Final Approach to Moon
Chandrayaan-2: India's Vikram Lander Presumed to Have Crashed
Chandrayaan-2 Updates: Lunar Orbit Insertion and Lunar Orbit Maneuver
Chandrayaan-2 Launch: How to Watch First Mission to the Moon's South Pole Mon 20190722 @ 0913 UTC
Scrubbed Chandrayaan 2 Mission to Moon's South Pole to Launch on Mon July 22 0913 UTC
India's Lunar Spacecraft Launches Sunday on First-Ever Mission to Moon's South Pole
India to Launch Combined Orbiter/Lander/Rover Mission
India's Chandrayaan-2 Moon Mission Planned for 2018


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday December 03 2019, @03:59PM (2 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 03 2019, @03:59PM (#927674) Journal

    Moon kilometers, or Indian kilometers, or UK kilometers, or . . .

    --
    “I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Tuesday December 03 2019, @08:59PM

    by captain normal (2205) on Tuesday December 03 2019, @08:59PM (#927821)

    Which is why we should just stick with yards and miles. :-)

    --
    The Musk/Trump interview appears to have been hacked, but not a DDOS hack...more like A Distributed Denial of Reality.
  • (Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday December 04 2019, @10:23AM

    by driverless (4770) on Wednesday December 04 2019, @10:23AM (#928055)

    It's 0.006 lakh kilometers.