Vikram had hard landing, NASA releases high-resolution images of Chandrayaan 2 landing site
Washington: Vikram had a "hard landing", NASA said on Friday, as it released high-resolution images captured by its reconnaissance orbiter of the Moon's unchartered south pole where the Chandrayaan 2 lander attempted to soft-land during the ambitious mission three weeks ago.
The module had attempted a soft landing on a small patch of lunar highland smooth plains between Simpelius N and Manzinus C craters before losing communication with ISRO on September 7. The site was about 600 km from the south pole in a relatively ancient terrain, according to the US space agency.
"Vikram had a hard landing and the precise location of the spacecraft in the lunar highlands has yet to be determined, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said.
The scene was captured from a Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) Quickmap fly-around of the targeted landing site image width is about 150 kilometres across the centre."
Vikram was scheduled to touch down on September 7. This event was India's first attempt to soft land on the Moon and could have propelled it into a select club of countries to have landed on the lunar surface.
After Vikram lost contact with ground stations, just 2.1 km above the touchdown site, the possibility of establishing contact with the lander had a deadline of September 21, because after that the region entered into a lunar night.
ISRO had said the mission life of the Vikram lander and the Pragyan rover it carried will be one lunar day, which is equal to 14 Earth days.
The lunar nights can be very cold, especially in the south polar region where Vikram is lying. Temperatures could drop to as low as minus 200 degrees Celsius during the lunar night.
The instruments aboard the lander are not designed to withstand that kind of temperature. The electronics would not work in absence of solar energy and would get permanently damaged.
The NASA orbiter passed over the Vikram landing site on September 17 and acquired a set of high-resolution images of the area; so far the LROC team has not been able to locate or image the lander.
LRO will next fly over the landing site on October 14 when lighting conditions will be more favourable, John Keller, Deputy Project Scientist Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission, Goddard Space Flight Centre, told PTI via email.
"It was dusk when the landing area was imaged and thus large shadows covered much of the terrain; it is possible that the Vikram lander is hiding in a shadow. The lighting will be favourable when LRO passes over the site in October and once again attempts to locate and image the lander," NASA said.
Our @LRO_NASA mission imaged the targeted landing site of India’s Chandrayaan-2 lander, Vikram. The images were taken at dusk, and the team was not able to locate the lander. More images will be taken in October during a flyby in favorable lighting. More: https://t.co/1bMVGRKslp pic.twitter.com/kqTp3GkwuM
— NASA (@NASA) 26 September 2019
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
