Bengaluru: The Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO’s) lost all hope of re-establishing communication with the Vikram lander after the lunar night began between Friday and Saturday at the landing site of the lander.
The lunar night, equivalent to fourteen days on Earth, drops the temperature on the Moon to -180 degrees C. But Vikram is not designed to withstand such a temperature and the electronics will become unviable after the lunar night. It will also run out of charge if the solar panels were not deployed after the ‘hard-landing’.
The temperature during the day is about 130 degrees C.
“We can now say that there is no hope of Isro communicating with the lander, the mission life of the lander-rover is over. The mission was designed to conduct experiments during the lunar day and does not have the kind of shielding that can keep the electronics warm and functioning,” said Nirupam Roy, assistant professor of Physics at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore.
To communicate with the Vikram lander, it should have enough power and the antenna should be properly oriented. Vikram could have been communicated either with the Orbiter going around the moon or directly with the Earth.
