Vikram Lander

The 1,471 kg Vikram lander — named after Dr Vikram A. Sarabhai, the father of the Indian space programme — was designed to execute India's first soft landing on the Moon and operate for one lunar day (about 14 Earth days). It carried the 27 kg Pragyan rover in a compartment with a deployable ramp.

Vikram used five 800 N throttleable engines for descent, along with a suite of navigation cameras, altimeters and hazard-avoidance sensors.

Science payloads

• RAMBHA — Radio Anatomy of Moon Bound Hypersensitive ionosphere and Atmosphere: Langmuir probe to measure near-surface plasma density.
• ChaSTE — Chandra's Surface Thermophysical Experiment: thermal probe to measure temperature versus depth in the topsoil.
• ILSA — Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity: seismometer for moonquakes near the landing site.
• LRA — Laser Retroreflector Array (NASA): passive reflector for precise laser ranging.

The lander was lost during its descent on 6 September 2019 — see Loss of the Vikram lander. Improved versions of all three Indian instruments flew again on Chandrayaan-3's lander in 2023 and returned landmark results from the lunar south polar region.

Source: Wikipedia — Chandrayaan-2