NASA Analysing Images Taken by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter: Search for Vikram Lander

New Delhi: Researchers are dissecting the pictures taken under bright light conditions by the NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) Camera of the zone where the Vikram moon lander is probably going to have landed down on the moon and it might be some time before they can find it, anticipate specialists told IANS.

LRO venture researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Noah Petro, said on Wednesday that they were currently breaking down the pictures taken on Tuesday “and we will create an impression sooner or later when we can recognize the lander.”

In any case, he included, “recollect that the light conditions right now where the lander might be are to strong.”

In this way, it “could be hard to distinguish at this moment (and it) might be somewhat longer before we have another chance to picture the arrival site next October 14″ when the LRO next visit that region of the moon.

The chief agent for the LRO camera, Mark Robinson of Arizona State University, said that the last picture of the region was obtained on Wednesday and will set aside some effort to dissect as there seem to be ” loads of pixels” to search.

A NASA explanation conveyed a note of alert saying that when the LRO flew over the Vikram landing site close to nightfall, with enormous shadows covering the territory.”

The LROC “procured pictures around the focused on landing site, yet the precise area of the lander was not known so the lander may not be in the camera field of view,” NASA said.

“The LROC group will investigate these new pictures and match them with past pictures to check whether the lander is visible (it might be in shadow or outside the imaged zone),” it included.

Vikram lost contact with the Indian Space Research Organization after it was propelled by the Chandrayaan-2 moon orbiter to land in the region of the moon’s south post on September 6.

Subsequent to following the proposed direction, it veered off in the last minutes during the last two kilometers of the drop and went quiet.

Vikram carried a rover called Pragyan that was to have conducted experiments on the moon’s surface.