Chandrayaan-2 was India's second mission to the moon, and was a follow-up mission from the Chandrayaan-1 mission that assisted in confirming the presence of water/hydroxyl on the moon in 2009.
Chandrayaan-2 launched from the Satish Dhawan Sp
ace Center in Sriharikota, India, aboard a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) rocket on July 22, 2019 and reached lunar orbit on Aug. 19. During the Sept. 6 (Sept. 7 IST) moon landing attempt, ISRO officials lost contact with the Vikram moon lander as the probe was just 1.3 miles (2.1 kilometers) above the lunar surface. Officials have been unable to reach the lander since losing contact on Sept. 6.
Despite the apparent crash-landing of the lander, ISRO has confirmed that all the instruments on board the orbiter are working well. The current orbiter carries eight different instruments — and Indian scientists are already poring over some of the mission's very first science data. On Oct. 4, ISRO released photos the orbiter's High Resolution Camera took on Sept. 5 of a crater called Boguslawsky E, located near the lunar south pole.
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