'Our own orbiter had located Vikram,' ISRO chief counters NASA claim

Reacting to NASA's claim of discovering Chandrayaan-2's debris on the moon, ISRO chairman K Sivan said that the organisation's own orbiter had done so after it had hard-landed on the lunar surface.

Kishangarh (Rajasthan): After US space agency NASA claimed to have located Chandrayaan-2's debris on the lunar surface, ISRO chief K Sivan on Tuesday said that the Indian Space agency had in fact located it long back.

"Our own orbiter had located Vikram lander. We had already declared that on our website, you can go back and see," he told reporters at the Central University of Rajasthan's convocation ceremony here.

Sivan added that verification of information by NASA was not required.

• #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.#ISRO

  — ISRO (@isro) September 10, 2019 " class="align-text-top noRightClick twitterSection" data="

  #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.#ISRO

  — ISRO (@isro) September 10, 2019

  ">

  #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.#ISRO

  — ISRO (@isro) September 10, 2019

Pertinently, ISRO had on September 10 tweeted that the Vikram lander had been located. "Vikram Lander has been located by the orbiter of Chandrayaan 2, but no communication with it yet. All possible efforts are being made to establish communication with lander," the space organisation said.

Read: 'Vikram' in tilted position after hard hit, but unbroken: ISRO

Earlier on December 2, NASA claimed to have found the crash site and debris of India's Chandrayaan-2 Vikram moon lander following a tip from an Indian space enthusiast who examined pictures of the area of the moon taken by a US orbiting camera.

• The #Chandrayaan2 Vikram lander has been found by our @NASAMoon mission, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. See the first mosaic of the impact site https://t.co/GA3JspCNuh pic.twitter.com/jaW5a63sAf

  — NASA (@NASA) December 2, 2019 " class="align-text-top noRightClick twitterSection" data="

  The #Chandrayaan2 Vikram lander has been found by our @NASAMoon mission, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. See the first mosaic of the impact site https://t.co/GA3JspCNuh pic.twitter.com/jaW5a63sAf

  — NASA (@NASA) December 2, 2019

  ">

  The #Chandrayaan2 Vikram lander has been found by our @NASAMoon mission, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. See the first mosaic of the impact site https://t.co/GA3JspCNuh pic.twitter.com/jaW5a63sAf

  — NASA (@NASA) December 2, 2019

The site was located by Shanmuga Subramanian, who on his own scoured the pictures taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbital Camera (LROC), NASA and Arizona State University announced on Monday confirming the find.

The first mosaic image of the likely crash site made from pictures taken by the LROC on September 17 was downloaded by several people to look for signs of the Vikram, NASA said.

Read: NASA finds Vikram Lander, releases images of impact site on moon surface