As India prepares for a momentous lunar landing endeavor by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the spotlight turns to Chennai-based software developer Shanmuga Subramanian.
Renowned for his 2019 feat of pinpointing the debris from the Chandrayaan-2 mission’s Vikram lander, Subramanian’s vigilant gaze remains fixed on the upcoming Chandrayaan-3 anding, which is set to land today.
In December 2019, Subramanian had discovered the debris of Chandaryaan-2 when it had missed the eyes of both NASA and ISRO experts.
Chandrayaan2's Pragyan "ROVER" intact on Moon's surface & has rolled out few metres from the skeleton Vikram lander whose payloads got disintegrated due to rough landing | More details in below tweets @isro #Chandrayaan2 #VikramLander #PragyanRover (1/4) pic.twitter.com/iKSHntsK1f— Shan (Shanmuga Subramanian) (@Ramanean) August 1, 2020
Equipped solely with a regular laptop, he dedicated numerous days in the in November 2019 to scan through the contemporary images of the lunar expanse.
While zooming in and out, pixel by pixel, Subramanian came across a minuscule dot, which ultimately proved to be a fragment of the lander.
Subramanian had posted a picture picture taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbital (LRO) and said the white dot might be the skeleton lander devoid of other payloads and the black dot might be the rover. According to him, the rover may be still intact on the moon’s surface.