Chennai: In a series of tweets by Shanmuga Subramanian, the Chennai techie who spotted the debris of the moonlander Vikram which was credited by NASA, has stated that he has spotted the Chandrayaan 2's Pragyan 'Rover' intact on the moon.
Chennai: In a series of tweets by Shanmuga Subramanian, the Chennai techie who spotted the debris of the moonlander Vikram which was credited by NASA, has stated that he has spotted the Chandrayaan 2's Pragyan 'Rover' intact on the moon.
The tweet read, "Chandrayaan 2's Pragyan "ROVER" is intact on moon's surface & has rolled out few metres from the skeleton Vikram lander whose payloads got disintegrated due to rough landing. Debris I found was of Langumir probe from the Vikram lander 2. Debris NASA found might be from other payloads, antenna, retro braking engines, solar panels on side etc., Rover has rolled out from lander & has actually travelled few metres from the surface.
The South Pole region is not always well lit and the lander was in a shallow depth of 2 ms from the surface so it was not visible in Nov 11th's NASA flyby due to a different angle of incidence & would be difficult for anyone to find unless the sun is directly above the surface. Since the sun is never directly above the moon's surface in that region, it would have been so difficult."
He also updated his tweet and wrote, "It seems the commands were sent to lander blindly for days & there is a distinct possibility that lander could have received commands and relayed it to the rover, but lander was not able to communicate it back to the earth."
ISRO has acknowledged that they have received the communication from Shanmuga Subramanian and has also said that they’re verifying the claim.