Chandra (tckb)

Moon and Beyond | Chandra Tungathurthi | Substack Exploring Current & Future Moon Missions and Beyond: My Analyses, Thoughts, and Discussions. Click to read Moon and Beyond, by Chandra Tungathurthi, a Substack publication. Launched 5 months ago.

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Chandrayaan-2 captures crashed Athena lander on Moon in never-before-seen pics The Athena mission, the Houston-based company Intuitive Machines' second attempt to deliver Nasa science instruments near the lunar south pole touched down on March 6, 2025, in the rugged and shadowy ...

Story:

www.indiatoday.in/science/stor...

🚨I found the ill-fated @Int_Machines #IM2 #Athena lander using the #Chandrayaan2 OHRC and it shows some interesting patterns around the site where it hard landed. Exclusive story 👇 and I’ll share more detailed observations and my thoughts on this soon in my blog. (More pictures are storely below)

🚨 (New High res lunar images) On June 5, 2025, ispace_inc’s HAKUTO-R lander attempted a soft landing on the Moon in the Mare Frigoris region. Unfortunately, the mission ended in a crash landing during its final descent. (1/n)

When comparing OHRC imagery from #Chandrayaan2 with
@LROC images, it’s clear once again that @isro
’s OHRC remains the most capable lunar observation camera to date—delivering unmatched clarity, resolution, and detail from orbit.

Two Landers, One Mission: 2025 Lunar Exploration Begins 2025 Moon exploration begins with the launch of Firefly's Blue Ghost Mission 1 and ispace's Mission 2, part of the HAKUTO-R Venture Moon program

A more detailed technical analysis, including debris mapping and trajectory implications, will be shared in an upcoming blog post, adding to my existing blog post that wrote early this year.
moonandbeyond.blog/p/two-lander...

A distinct light-toned halo around the site indicates lunar regolith was ejected during impact. The debris spread extends noticeably from the point of contact, hinting at the significant kinetic force involved in the crash.

Both images offer high-resolution visuals of the impact site. In the first annotated image, the crash point is clearly visible, along with a debris field scattered around the site, providing valuable post-impact data.

The exact coordinates of the impact, as determined from OHRC imagery, are (60.445897, 355.410438). OHRC captured these images from an altitude of ~109 km, with a pixel resolution of 28 cm—some of the clearest views to date.

A week later, on June 12, 2025, India's #Chandrayaan2 orbiter captured two images of the crash site using its Orbiter High-Resolution Camera (OHRC) during two separate passes—at 20:31 UTC and 22:29 UTC.

🚨 (New High res lunar images) On June 5, 2025, ispace_inc’s HAKUTO-R lander attempted a soft landing on the Moon in the Mare Frigoris region. Unfortunately, the mission ended in a crash landing during its final descent. (1/n)

#NISAR separation from GSLV-F16 today. NASA confirms signal acquisition, solar panels deployed.

How it started vs How’s it going via x/ISROSpaceflight

NASA 🤝 ISRO

With launch successful, ISRO waits until it starts receiving and processing 8 Terra Bytes of S-Band data and @nasajpl.bsky.social 35 Terra Bytes of L-Band data single a day!

Now that’s wealth of global data

ISRO successfully launched and deployed NISAR in its intended orbit with a precision of ~2km to its desired placement.

Two Landers, One Mission: 2025 Lunar Exploration Begins 2025 Moon exploration begins with the launch of Firefly's Blue Ghost Mission 1 and ispace's Mission 2, part of the HAKUTO-R Venture Moon program

More details will be shared in my blog in the next days.

moonandbeyond.blog/p/two-lander...

ispace 'RESILIENCE' is now as up above the Moon's surface as Chandrayaan-2 oribiter and not so long now when it descends to the Sea of Cold ~(60.5, -4.5)

Image credts: ispace

A day after the launch of ispace 'RESILIENCE' ISRO
seems to have already started terrain analysis on the landing location using the highest resolition camera circling around the moon right now, Chandrayaan 2.

Image shows the latest released images of the target landing location of RESILIENCE.

The first German women in orbit, and the most exotic trajectory - except for those goimg to the Moon, of course - to date actually. Now let's see how much we're going to see and hear in the coming days; a ham radio contact is already planned for 7:28 UTC today: scicomm.xyz/@ARISS_Intl@...

Images from Stooke, P.J., 2025. Chandrayaan 3 and Pragyan Rover: Traverse Analysis. 56th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC 2025). references in the image: [1] ISRO map, https://x.com/isro/status/1697881823391711684 [2] Vadawale, S., ASET talk, Tata Institute, 19 October 2023. [3] Vadawale, S. et al., 2024. Nature, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07870-7 . [4] Vijayan, S. et al., 2024. Icarus, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116329. [5] Ghosh, R. et al., 2024. Int. Conf. Space Robotics.

Better and more accurate traverse maps of Pragyan rover of #Chandrayaan3
(check alt for sources and references)

"Here lies Blue Ghost, a testament to the team who,
with the loving support of their families and friends,
built and operated this machine and its payloads,
to push the capabilities and knowledge of humanity one small step further.
Per aspera ad astra!
Love, Blue Ghost"

"Here, I will outlast your mightiest rivers, your tallest mountains, and perhaps even your species as we know it.But it is remarkable that a species might be outlasted by its own ingenuity...." 2/3

#BGM1 bids à Dieu from Moon with one last message.
"Mission mode change detected, now in Monument Mode Goodnight friends. After exchanging our final bits of data, I will hold vigil on this spot in Mare Crisium to watch humanity's continued journey to the stars..." (1/3)

Moon and Beyond - It's the first anniversary Reflecting on a Year of Exploring the Moon and Beyond

moonandbeyond.blog/p/one-year-a...

It’s been a year since started writing my blog here’s an update and some changes.

Moved from @Ghost to @SubstackInc . Details in my blog 👇

matryosika@亜鉛（Zn） on X: "とりあえず同じ画角っぽかったので、手っ取り早くsigmaクリッピング&2xdrizzleな設定でスタックして、レベル調整とウェーブレットかけてみた #WhatYaokiSee https://t.co/z4lhSlNwoe" / X とりあえず同じ画角っぽかったので、手っ取り早くsigmaクリッピング&2xdrizzleな設定でスタックして、レベル調整とウェーブレットかけてみた #WhatYaokiSee https://t.co/z4lhSlNwoe

personally I like this - but its still a bit challenging to figure out the orientation

x.com/matryo_sika/...

this is kinda hard to tell with very limited public info. But, this is what I can interpret it. The Yaoki rover is completely hidden, but you can see the shadow as well as the illuminated regolith on the top left corner.

note the leg either is completely or partially bent

this is kinda hard to tell with very limited public info. But, this is what I can interpret it. The Yaoki rover is completely hidden, but you can see the shadow as well as the illuminated regolith on the top left corner.

The tiny rover on board #IM2 Athena captured the broken leg of Athena (again!) and a mysterious debris off the lander. @yaoki_space has released the raw images - thanks!
here's the processed image.
#WhatYaokiSee

Credits: Daimon/C.Tungathurthi