Chennai techie Shanmuga Subramanian helps NASA locate Chandrayaan-2’s Vikram lander, Anand Mahindra tweets about him

Shanmuga Subramanian, an engineer hailing from Chennai, has sparked Twitter chatter and for all the right reasons. This mechanical engineer and an app developer helped National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to locate Vikram lander of India’s second moon mission Chandrayaan-2.

Subramanian got interested in finding the lander after a picture of the impact site was released by NASA. He started comparing that image with pictures of the site which were taken previously and eventually spotted the debris of Vikram lander. He got in touch with the American space agency about his findings. Later, he also shared a screenshot of an email he received from NASA.

Expectedly, this news quickly grabbed netizens’ attentions - especially on Twitter. Many came forward to dish out congratulatory posts. There were also some who wrote about Shanmuga Subramanian’s achievement, including business tycoon Anand Mahindra. He called him a “tech wizard” too.

Here’s how people reacted to Mahindra’s tweet:

“I don’t think Vikram lander would have made such an impact on minds of Indian public if it had landed successfully,” Subramanian told Hindustan Times.

Back in September, communications from Chandrayaan-2’s Vikram lander to ISRO’s ground station was lost before its touchdown.

Also Read | ‘I found a tiny dot’: Chennai techie explains how he spotted Vikram lander