Lander Vikram, with rover Pragyan housed inside it, lost communication with ground-station early on September 7 during its final descent.?
On September 8, ISRO said the lander was spotted on the lunar surface by camera on-board of the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter.
ISRO
Since then the team at ISRO has been desperately trying to establish a connection but the hopes for the same are fading out too quickly.?
According to reports, the time-frame to?restore link with Vikram is closing in about a week.?
The lander, designed to execute a soft-landing on the lunar surface, and rover have a mission life of one Lunar day, which is equivalent to 14 earth days -- that means ISRO now has just over a week to spring Vikram back to life.
"Progressively, you can imagine that it becomes that much more difficult, with each passing hour, the available power on the battery gets drained out, and there won't be anything left for it to power and operate", an ISRO official told PTI.
ISRO
"With every passing minute, the situation becomes worse only...less and less probable (to establish contact with Vikram", he said.
"It looks more and more remote only", the official said when asked if there was a slender chance of re-establishing the link.
Another top ISRO official said "hard-landing" of Vikram on the Lunar surface has made the task of linking again with it that much difficult as it may not have the "right orientation (to receive signals)". "Impact shock may have caused damage to the lander," he claimed.
The Vikram lander, which went incommunicado while attempting to land on the Moon's surface was located last week.?
Vikram Lander and Pragyan rover were aimed to explore the unexplored south pole of the lunar surface.? The lander and rover were expected to last at least one lunar day, or 14 Earth days, on the moonĄ¯s surface.