Shanmuga Subramanian, a Chennai-based engineer has become a star in his country. The reason for his celebrity? He spent close to seven hours a day in a bid to locate the Vikram Lander. Today, NASA credited Subramanian for alerting them about the presence of the debris of Chandrayaan 2. The 33-year-old mechanical engineer had alerted both the US space agency and ISRO.
“I did send a tweet to NASA and ISRO. I sent emails to a couple of NASA scientists. They were in charge of the LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) images. I got a good response from them,” Subramanian told NDTV.
In what was perhaps one of the saddest moments in India’s space history, ISRO had lost contact with the Vikram lander after its launch from the Chandraayan 2 moon orbiter near the south pole of the moon. On October 3rd, Subramanian had tweeted: “Is This Vikram Lander? (1 Km From The Landing Spot) Lander Might Have Been Buried In Lunar Sand?”
He tweeted two images of the crash site of the Vikram lander on November 17 along with more details. “It’s quite big but it is a little sad at the same time because we all expected Vikram to land on the surface. I hope ISRO will again have a successful Chandrayaan 3 and they will be able to land on moon next time,” he further told NDTV.
