India’s prime minister, Shri Narendra Modi — who watched the final moments of the attempt — offered words of encouragement to the Chandrayaan team, which has been working on the $150 million project.
“India is proud of our scientists!” wrote Modi on Twitter. “They’ve given their best and have always made India proud. These are moments to be courageous, and courageous we will be!”
Chandrayaan-2 is a follow-on mission to the Chandrayaan-1 Mission. Chandryaan-2 comprises of an Orbiter, Lander (Vikram) and Rover (Pragyaan). Unlike Chandrayaan-1, Chandrayaan-2 will attempt to soft land its Vikram module on the lunar surface and deploy a six-wheeled Rover, Pragyaan on the Moon to carry out several scientific experiments. The lift-off mass of Chandrayaan-1 was 1380 kg while Chandrayaan-2 weighs 3850 kg. Chandrayaan-2 aims to widen the scientific objectives of Chandrayaan-1 by way of soft landing on the Moon and deploying a rover to study the lunar surface. The Orbiter carries eight scientific payloads for mapping the lunar surface and study the exosphere (outer atmosphere) of the Moon. The Lander carries three scientific payloads to conduct surface and subsurface science experiments. The Rover carries two payloads to enhance our understanding of the lunar surface. A passive experiment from NASA will also be carried onboard Chandrayaan-2. The mission life of Orbiter will be one year whereas the mission life of lander (Vikram) and rover (Pragyan) will be one Lunar day which is equal to fourteen earth days.
After the failed attempt, K. Sivan, Indian Space Research Organization’s chairman stated that “Vikram lander descent was as planned and normal performance was observed till the altitude of 2.1 km. Subsequently, the communication from the lander to the ground station was lost. The data is being analyzed”.
The mission, however, was not a complete failure. Chandrayaan-2, a $140 million mission, partially intends to study the possibility of water deposits further within the moon carters, first highlighted by Chandrayaan-1 in 2008. The 142-foot tall spacecraft that blasted off the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Andhra Pradesh on the 15th July, under this mission carried an orbiter, the Vikram lunar lander, and a six-wheeled rover. The orbiter that had detached from the lander earlier this week can expectedly continue to operate for about seven years. The failure of the Vikram lander, interestingly, comes, just months after India’s close ally Israel's first moon mission, Beresheet, met a similar fate.
Just moments before landing, telemetry screens at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) mission control center froze, in a scene eerily reminiscent to the crash of Israel's Beresheet lander in April. Those screens reported the spacecraft was traveling at a horizontal speed of about 48 meters per second and a vertical speed of about 60 meters per second, just over 1 kilometer from the landing site. A flight controller said communications with NASA's Deep Space Network in Madrid had stopped. Several minutes later, ISRO chief K. Sivan said that Vikram's descent was nominal until an altitude of 2.1 kilometers, and communications were lost shortly thereafter.
The most probable conclusion is that Vikram crashed on the surface. The apparent end of the lander comes a month and a half after it launched as part of the combined Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft on 22 July. Chandrayaan-2 arrived in lunar orbit on 20 August, and Vikram separated on 2 September. The lander successfully used its engines to descend to an orbit with a perilune, or low point above the lunar surface, of just 35 kilometers.
The Chandrayaan-2 orbiter, meanwhile, continues to operate and is expected to perform scientific obervations of the Moon for at least a year. Among its science instruments is an infrared spectrometer that will search for signatures of hydroxyl and water ice near the Moon's south pole.
Had Vikram landed, India would have been just the fourth country to successfully soft-land a spacecraft on the lunar surface. Earlier this year, that honor almost went to Israel thanks to the country's Beresheet lander, but a software glitch caused the spacecraft's engines to shut down at the last minute. Like Beresheet, Vikram sent data home up until the last minute, which will provide valuable troubleshooting data that can also improve the chances of success for future missions.
In an official statement ISRO mentioned “The success criteria (were) defined for each and every phase of the mission and till date 90 to 95 per cent of the mission objectives have been accomplished and will continue to contribute to lunar science.”
“ISRO’s achievement with getting Chandrayaan-2 so far has made every Indian proud. India stands with our committed and hard working scientists at @isro. My best wishes for your future endeavors,” said home minister Amit Shah in a tweet.
Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra in his tweet said, “The communication isn’t lost. Every single person in India can feel the heartbeat of #chandrayaan2. We can hear it whisper to us that ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
that ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” “The path to success will have pit falls but effort n endurance will clear the path n succeed we will. ISRO scientists will figure it out. The orbiter is a great sign of their scientific success,” said Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairperson and Managing Director, Biocon.