‘Chandrayaan-2 orbiter healthy and safe in lunar orbit’, says Isro after losing contact with Vikram lander

The Chandrayaan-2 orbiter is healthy and safe in the Lunar orbit, an ISRO official said after the Vikram lander lost contact with ground stations minutes before

The Chandrayaan-2 orbiter is healthy and safe in the Lunar orbit, an ISRO official said after the Vikram lander lost contact with ground stations minutes before the touchdown on Moon’s surface early on Saturday.

Officials watch live telecast of Chandrayaan 2 at ISRO Telemetry Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) prior to the soft landing of Vikram module of Chandrayaan 2 on lunar surface,in Bengaluru on Saturday. (PTI Photo/Isro Twitter)

“The orbiter is healthy, intact, functioning normally and safely in the Lunar orbit,” the official told PTI.

The mission life of the 2,379-kg orbiter is one year.

The orbiter payloads will conduct remote-sensing observations from a 100 km orbit.

Chandrayaan-2, a follow-on mission to the Chandrayaan-1 mission undertaken more than a decade ago, comprises an orbiter, lander (Vikram) and rover (Pragyan).

The orbiter carries eight scientific payloads for mapping the lunar surface and study the exosphere (outer atmosphere) of the Moon.

ISRO on September two successfully carried out the separation of lander Vikram (with rover Pragyan housed inside) from the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter.

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In the early hours of Saturday, communication from ‘Vikram’ lander to ground stations was lost during its powered descent to the Lunar surface, and ISRO said data is being analysed.

“Vikram lander descent was as planned and normal performance was observed up to an altitude of 2.1 km.

Subsequently, the communication from lander to groundstations was lost,” ISRO Chairman K Sivan said.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)