Isro checking space enthusiast's claim of moon rover rolling on lunar surface

<p class="p1">Space enthusiast Shanmuga Subramanian, who found the debris of India's moon lander Vikram, said that Chandrayaan-2's rover Pragyan seems to be intact on the moon's surface and had rolled out a few meters from the lander.</p>
<p class="p1">In a series of tweets along with the pictures of the moon surface, Subramanian said, "Chandrayaan-2's Pragyan "Rover" intact on Moon's surface & has rolled out few meters from the skeleton Vikram lander whose payloads got disintegrated due to rough landing."</p>
<p class="p1">"We have received communication from him (Subramanian). Our experts are analyzing the same," K. Sivan, Chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), told IANS.</p>
<p class="p1">"It seems the commands were sent to the lander blindly for days & there is a distinct possibility that the lander could have received commands and relayed it to the rover… but the lander was not able to communicate it back to the earth," Subramanian said.</p>
<p class="p1">There is also the possibility of the rover rolling out of the lander when it impacted the moon's surface.</p>
<p class="p1">Tweeting a picture taken by Nasa's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbital (LRO), Shanmugam said the white dot might be the skeleton lander devoid of other payloads and the black dot might be the rover.</p>
<p class="p1">According to him, the rover may be still intact on the moon's surface. The latest pictures from LRO (January 4) showed rover tracks on the moon from the lander.</p>
<p class="p1">He said the debris he had found earlier might be from one of the payloads. The debris found by Nasa might be of other payloads, transmitting antenna and thrusters.</p>
<p class="p1">Vikram lost contact with ISRO following its launch from Chandrayaan-2 moon orbiter on September 6 last year when it tried to make a soft landing near the moon's south pole.</p>
<p class="p1">July 21, 2020, marked a year of the launch of India's second moon mission by a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV)-MkIII-M1.</p>
<p class="p1">It was on July 22, 2019, when the GSLV rocket, nicknamed 'Bahubali', blasted off from the second launch pad at India's rocket port in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh carrying Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter Vikram (lander) and Pragyan (rover).</p>.