The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter imaged the area of the targeted Chandrayaan-2 Vikram landing site on October 14, but did not observe any evidence of the lander,” Noah Edward Petro, the Project Scientist for the LRO mission, told PTI in an exclusive email interaction.
Petro said that the camera team carefully examined the images and employed the change detection technique — using a ratio of an image captured prior to the landing attempt to the one acquired on October 14. This approach, he said, is used for finding new meteorite impacts on the Moon that also helped locate the recent Beresheet, a small robotic Moon lander and lunar probe operated by the Israel Aerospace Industries. This approach, he said, is used for finding new meteorite impacts on the Moon that also helped locate the recent Beresheet, a small robotic Moon lander and lunar probe operated by the “It is possible that Vikram is located in a shadow or outside of the search area. Because of the low latitude, approximately 70 degrees south, the area is never completely free of shadows,” John Keller, Deputy Project Scientist LRO Mission, told PTI.
During its previous flyby, the LRO passed over the landing site on September 17 and acquired a set of high-resolution images of the area.
The LRO team had not been able to locate or image the lander even then.