Lander Vikram located: K Sivan

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Sunday said that it has found the location of Lander Vikram, with which, the space agency lost communication moments before it was scheduled to make a soft-landing on the South Pole region of the moon.

The orbiter has clicked a thermal image of the Lander.

"We have found the location of Lander Vikram on lunar surface and orbiter has clicked a thermal image of Lander," K Sivan told ANI over the phone.

However, the ISRO chief underlined that no communication has been established with the Lander yet.

"We are trying to establish a contact. It will be communicated soon," he added.

He also maintained that it will be "premature to say anything". "We are trying to establish contact with Vikram lander," he added.

The lander Vikram was to land on the moon's surface at 1.55 am on September 7. It had been descending for 12 minutes. Three minutes before that, it lost contact with Earth. It was 2.1 km above the moon's surface when it lost contact with the ground station at ISRO headquarters in Bengaluru.

A success would have made India the fourth country to place a spacecraft on the moon after the then USSR, the U.S. and China. Also, India would have been the first country to reach close to the lunar south pole.

The Vikram Lander successfully separated from Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter on September 2. After revolving around the Earth's orbit for nearly 23 days, the craft began its journey to the moon on August 14.

The mission took off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on July 22.

-ANI