Chandrayaan 3 Vikram Lander gives NASA new way to trace location on Moon

Vikram Lander: India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission is proving helpful for others. US space agency NASA A new way has been found to trace the location of an object on the Moon. ISRO’s Vikram Lander played an important role in this experiment. Along with this, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has also got the exact location of Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram Lander on the Moon.

Report According to, NASA’s LRO spacecraft orbiting the Moon detected the exact location of Vikram Lander on the Moon. NASA transmitted and reflected the laser light between LRO and a small retroreflector mounted on the Vikram lander. This provided a new way to find the exact location of a target on the lunar surface.

NASA’s LRO sent laser waves towards Vikram lander on December 12. Then Vikram Lander was 100 kilometers away from the LRO spacecraft near Manginus Crater on the south pole of the Moon. The experiment was successful when laser light returned from the retroreflector of Vikram Lander. This showed NASA that their technology had worked.

Last Friday, ISRO had informed that the Laser Retroreflector Array (LRA) installed on Vikram Lander has started working as a marker i.e. ‘fiducial point’ on the Moon.

Scientists said that there are many benefits of using ‘reverse technology’ on the moon. For example, the exact location of the target can be detected by sending laser waves from a spacecraft revolving in the lunar orbit. This can help the lander landing there. Xiaoli Sun, who led the team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center during the experiment, said that we have shown that we can detect our retroreflector on the surface from orbit around the Moon.

NASA says that the instrument installed on Vikram Lander is durable. It does not need electricity or any maintenance. He can work for decades.