It's Harder To Re-Connect With Vikram Lander As Time Goes By, But ISRO Says They'll Keep Trying

It was heartbreaking when ISRO got the Chandrayaan-2 lander 95 percent of the way down to the Moon's surface on Saturday morning, before losing contact with it.

The space agency is still attempting to re-establish connection, but they fear all may be lost.

On Saturday, ISRO Chairman K Sivan said they will continue to make attempts to reconnect to the Vikram lander for the next 14 days. On Sunday, a scheduled overhead pass by the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter located and imaged Vikram's landing site, and Sivan reiterated their efforts would continue.

Since then, a senior official linked to the mission has been quoted voicing his doubts. "Progressively... as time goes by... it's difficult," he said, according to PTI.

Remember the Vikram lander's communication was lost just as it was about to land. It seemed to be only 2.1 km above the surface of the Moon, and still had forward momentum. If all had gone according to plan, ISRO still needed to fire the lander's boosters in a "fine braking" process, in order to both slow its forward movement as well as it's falling speed. Then, it would have dropped the last few metres on its own speed in the low gravity.

What ISRO fears is that Vikram landed too hard, and therefore isn't oriented the way it's supposed to be. If that's the case, it won;t be able to generate power from the solar panels to recharge its batteries. And that's not taking into account any possible damage.

Still, the Indian space agency says it will not give up hope just yet. Since the lander and Pragyaan rover were expected to run their mission for a lunar day (about 14 Earth days), ISRO will be spending that entire two-week window attempting to reconnect.

If by some stroke of luck they do manage to make a connection, they can possibly attempt at least some of the experiments planned for the lunar surface.