Amateur Sleuth Helps Locate Crash Site of India’s Vikram Moon Lander #SpaceSaturday
via Spaceflight Now
…Indian software developer and mechanical engineer [Shanmuga Subramanian] combing through high-resolution imagery captured by a NASA spacecraft has located debris scattered on the lunar surface in September by the crash of the Vikram lander, India’s first probe to attempt a soft touchdown on the moon, NASA said Monday.
“It was something challenging as even NASA couldn’t find out, so why (not) try it out,” Subramanian wrote. “And that’s the thought that led me to search for Vikram … I don’t think Vikram lander would have made such an impact on (the) minds of (the) Indian public if it had landed successfully. Since it was lost, there was (a) lot of discussion in public forms as well as on my Facebook regarding what malfunctioned, etc.”