Some amazing work has been done by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) in the task to find India's Vikram lander. It has taken photos of the targeted landing site of Vikram lander, which had crashed on the moon during the last stages of landing thereby hitting the Chandrayaan-2 mission. It was expected that these photos would show the Vikram lander, but to the huge disappointment of scientists and millions of people in India, no clues emerged. 
It may be that the photos of the area in which Vikram crashed were taken at dusk, and therefore the team was not able to locate the lander. However, there is hope as more images will be taken in October during a flyby in favorable lighting conditions, the US space agency said. Vikram lander had a hard landing and the precise location of the spacecraft in the lunar highlands has yet to be determined, it said.

COMMERCIAL BREAK
SCROLL TO CONTINUE READING

The lander, Vikram, was scheduled to touch down on September 7 (September 6 in the United States) 6 at 4:24 pm Eastern Daylight Time. This event was the country's first attempt at a soft landing on the Moon. 

NASA's Vikram lander image:

 

Lunar lander Vikram attempted a landing on a small patch of lunar highland smooth plains between Simpelius N and Manzinus C craters, it said. 

NASA's Vikram lander image:

Nasa account of attempt to photograph area
* On the moon, the site was located about 600 kilometers (370 miles) from the south pole in a relatively ancient terrain (70.8°S latitude, 23.5°E longitude), NASA said in a statement. 
* In order to visualise the site, the Orbiter Camera took a quick fly-around. 
* The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) passed over the landing site on September 17 and acquired a set of high-resolution images of the area.
* So far the LROC team has not been able to locate or image the lander.
* The images were captured from a LROC Quickmap fly-around of the targeted landing site, about 150 kilometres across the center. 
Reason why Vikram Lander was not located
* It was dusk when the landing area was imaged.
* Large shadows covered much of the terrain
* It is possible that the Vikram lander is hidden in the shadows. 
Hope still alive to locate Vikram Lander
* The lighting will be favorable when LRO passes over the site in October.
* Attempts will be made to locate and image the lander.