"Could NASA Also Help Us..." RCB Quips As Lander Vikram's Debris Found

As Chennai based engineer Shanmuga Subramanian helped NASA find the debris of Chandrayaan-2's lander Vikram on Tuesday, Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) came up with a hilarious tweet for the "NASA team". Referring to all the cricket balls hit out of the park by their premier batsmen AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli, RCB tweeted, "Could the #NASA team that found #VikramLander also help us find the cricket balls hit by ABD & Virat". After the Vikram Lander was located, the NASA, in a statement credited the Indian engineer and said, "the debris first located by Shanmuga Subramanian about 750 meters northwest of the main crash site and was a single bright pixel identification in that first mosaic".

Could the #NASA team that found #VikramLander also help us find the cricket balls hit by ABD & Virat?

— Royal Challengers (@RCBTweets) December 3, 2019

The Bengaluru franchise had earlier posted a congratulatory tweet for ISRO after the successful launch of Chandrayaan 2. "Congratulations @isro. Watching #Chandrayan2 take off was a fantastic sight! P.S. We have a special request for you, on behalf of our batsmen," RCB tweeted.

Shanmuga Subramanian, a 33-year-old IT professional, whose Twitter bio now reads, "I found Vikram Lander!" told NDTV, "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".

ISRO had lost contact with the lander Vikram following its launch from Chandrayaan-2 moon orbiter on September 6 when it tried to make soft-landing near the moon's south pole. A successful soft-landing on the moon's surface would have made the country only the fourth - after the United States, Russia and China - to achieve the feat.

Topics mentioned in this article

Royal Challengers Bangalore Virat Kohli AB de Villiers IPL 2020 Cricket