Chandrayaan-2: Crucial day for Vikram lander as Nasa lunar orbiter set to fly by, take photos

An orbiter operated by the United States is set to fly over the part of the Moon where the Chandrayaan-2 lander Vikram lies after having lost contact with Earth during its attempt to land on the lunar surface. On Tuesday, exactly 10 days after the Vikram lander went silent, Nasa's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will fly over Vikram's landing site and attempt to take pictures of the lander in the hopes of determining the spacecraft's fate.

However, there are concerns that fading sunlight in the region, where Vikram is, could blur the photos that Nasa's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will attempt to take.

Interestingly, it turns out that Nasa's LRO had managed to collect data during the Chandrayaan-2 lander's descent in the early hours of September 7. A Nasa official, speaking at an event in the US recently, said the LRO studied changes to Moon's atmosphere caused by rocket effluent released during Vikram's descent.