Panel analysing cause of communication loss with lander: ISRO

A national-level committee comprisingacademics and ISRO experts are analysing the cause of communication loss with Chandrayaan-2 lander ahead ofits planned soft landing on the lunar surface, the space agency said on Thursday.

The Indian Space Research Organisation also said the orbiter of the India's secondlunar mission continued to perform scheduled scienceexperiments to "complete satisfaction" and performance of all its payloads were "satisfactory".

"All Payloads of orbiter are powered. Initial trials for orbiter payloads are completed successfully. Performanceof all orbiter Payloads is satisfactory. Orbiter continues to perform scheduled science experiments to complete satisfaction," the city-headquartered ISRO said in an update on its website.

"National-level committee consisting of academiciansand ISRO experts are analysing the cause of communication loss with lander," it added.

Lander Vikram, with rover Pragyan housed inside it,lost communication with ground station on September7 during its final descent, just 2.1 kms above the lunarsurface, minutes before the planned touch-down on the Moon.

Efforts to reestablish the link were on sincethen, but hopes of a positive result appear to be fading away.

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.

On September 8, ISRO said the lander was spotted on the lunar surface by camera on-board of the Chandrayaan-2orbiter.

Vikram had a hard-landing.

However, ISRO from the day of losing contact with the lander had been upbeat about the performance of the orbiter.

Till date 90 to 95 per cent of the Chandrayaan-2mission objectives have been accomplished and it will continue contributing to Lunar science, not withstanding the loss of communication with the Lander, ISRO had said on September 7.

It had also noted that the precise launch and mission management has ensured a long life of almost seven years instead of the planned one year for the orbiter.

The orbiter carries eight scientific payloads for
mapping the lunar surface and study the exosphere (outer