On Monday, December 2, NASA announced it had discovered the shattered remains of India’s Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft, which was colloquially nicknamed Vikram. Vikram went missing on September 6 as it approached the Moon’s south pole, where it had planned to land in order to confirm the presence of water ice. But ISRO lost contact with the machine.
After a three month search, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera claimed to have found the wreckage of Vikram about 600 km (372 miles) from the Moon’s south pole.
By analysing before and after images of the September 6 crash, NASA was able to locate the impact crater.
But ISRO chief Kailasavadivoo Sivan has now disputed this claim, stating the Indian space agency located Vikram just days after it crashed.
Mr Sivan said: “We don’t want to tell anything on this one. After the landing date itself, our website had given that our own orbiter has located Vikram.
“We have already declared that on our website. You can go back and see.”
Indeed, a tweet from ISRO on September 9 does seem to confirm, as they announced on Twitter: “#VikramLander has been located by the orbiter of #Chandrayaan2, but no communication with it yet.
“All possible efforts are being made to establish communication with lander.”
So far, the US, Russia and China are the only countries to have successfully landed on the Moon’s surface, but NASA said India had a good go of it.
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The permanent craters were confirmed by the Chandrayaan-1 mission in 2008.
The spacecraft carrying the Vikram lander launched from Sriharikota in southern India on July 22.
India’s first lunar mission, Chandrayaan-1 orbited the moon in 2008 but did not land.
Now, a British firm Spacebit – a London-based startup – plans to launch its robotic “crawler” to the moon by 2021, making it the first time the UK will get to the moon, if all goes to plan.
Spacebit is working in conjunction with US firm Astrobotic which was rewarded a $79.5m (£65m) contract to transport 14 instruments to the lunar surface.
The British firm has high ambitions for when it reaches the moon, including helping to set up a permanent base.
Spacebit CEO Pavlo Tanasyu told Express.co.uk: “I believe in terms of the opportunities that the UK provides is quite good for space exploration because it is less regulated and you can do something even if it is a private company.
“I wish that we have a slightly larger budget so we can go and do something for the agencies in the ways that companies are doing in the UK. It is like a new space race and there is a race to the Moon, and a race to other planets.”
