The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)informed it is possible that the Vikram lander of Chandrayaan-2 is hiding in ashadow on the lunar surface after it had a hard landing. It added that theprecise location of the spacecraft in the lunar highlands is yet to bedetermined.

NASA said that lander attempted a soft landing on September7 on a small patch of lunar highland smooth plains between Simpelius N andManzinus C craters. A Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) Quickmapfly-around captured a targeted landing site image with a width of about 150kilometres across the centre.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) passed over thelanding site on September 17 and acquired a set of high-resolution images ofthe area but so far the LROC team has not been able to locate or image thelander, added the NASA.

It was dusk when the landing area was imaged and thus largeshadows covered much of the terrain, asserted the space programme agency.  The lighting will be favourable when LRO passesover the site in October and once again attempts to locate and image thelander.The touchdown site was located about 600 kilometres (370 miles) from thesouth pole in a relatively ancient terrain.

Earlier, NASA had also tried establishing contact withlander Vikram by activating its deep space network - an array of worldwidespace antennas. However, despite all its efforts, it failed to establish aconnection with the Lander. Unfortunately, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiteralso failed to spot Vikram lander.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter camera instrument sentpictures of the intended Moon touchdown site for the Vikram lander but shadowsin the area could not capture the Lander's exact position.

Vikram Lander was just 2.1 kilometres above the lunarsurface when it lost contact with ISRO, throwing a pall of gloom over theIndian space agency. After the hard-landing of Vikram Lander on the lunarsurface, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had expressed hopes thatthey have at least 14 days to establish contact with it. In these 14 days, ISROachieved the status of Vikram Lander with the help of thermal opticalphotographs.