What Happened To Chandrayaan 2 Lander: Chandrayaan-2 which was launched on 22 July 2019 14:43 IST (09:13 UTC) from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota located in Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh, has lost the contact with ground stations during its final descent in the early hours of Saturday.
What Is Chandrayaan 2?
Chandrayaan-2 is second lunar exploration mission of India after Chandrayaan-1. The talented and well-determined team of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is behind the development of this project. This mission was the attempt to explore the south polar region of the Moon, a region until now unexplored by any of the nations.
ISRO chief K Sivan in at the time of launch, said in a statement, “I’m extremely happy to announce that the GSLVMkIII-M1 successfully injected Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft into Earth Orbit. It is the beginning of a historic journey of India towards the moon and to land at a place near the South Pole to carry out scientific experiments”
How Chandrayaan-2 Mission Loses Contact With the Lunar Lander?
The descent was normal up to an altitude of 2.1 km. Afterward, communication from the ground station to lander was lost, created tense moments and the data was then being analyzed.
While ISRO lost the contact with the lander, named Vikram, and the scientists were trying their best to retain the contact again, Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the ISRO scientists that the nation is proud of them. “I am with you, don’t lose courage. Move ahead bravely”, he says. Wishes them all the best.
PM Modi Reaction On Chandrayaan 2
PM Modi also tweeted, “India is proud of our scientists! They’ve given their best and have always made India proud. These are moments to be courageous, and courageous we will be!
India is proud of our scientists! They’ve given their best and have always made India proud. These are moments to be courageous, and courageous we will be!
Chairman @isro gave updates on Chandrayaan-2. We remain hopeful and will continue working hard on our space programme.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 6, 2019
Chairman @isro gave updates on Chandrayaan-2. We remain hopeful and will continue working hard on our space program.”
The main objective of Chandrayaan-2 was to exhibit the ability to soft-land on the lunar surface along with operating a robotic rover on the surface. Scientific goals comprise of studies of lunar topography, mineralogy, elemental abundance, the lunar exosphere, as well as the signatures of hydroxyl and water ice.
These studies are going to be performed by the lander, named ‘Vikram’, after the space luminary, Dr. Vikram A Sarabhai, who headed promising space program in India.
The space mission is also going to help us to understand our natural satellite better, through complex topographical studies, as well as comprehensive mineralogical analysis.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi who just addressed ISRO and the country minutes before lent a sympathetic shoulder to a desolate ISRO chief K Sivan. K Sivan broke down as he bid departure to PM Modi. On the other hand, PM Modi straightway hugged him and comforted him.
PM Modi addressed ISRO and the country and said, “If we would have been defeated by our starting difficulties, we would not have become a premier space agency. Regardless of the result, I and all of India are extremely proud of our scientists and engineers.”
While addressing Isro scientists hours after the space agency lost contact with Chandrayaan-2 lander, Prime Minister said, “The learnings from today will make us stronger and better; there will be a new dawn. The best is yet to come in our space program; India is with you. Countless people have got access to a better life due to the hard work of our space scientists. Our determination to touch moon has become even stronger, we came very close but we need to cover more ground.”
A successful touchdown would have made India the fourth leading country to achieve a soft landing on the Moon and the first to launch a mission to the unexplored south polar region. Other space agencies such as USSR, USA and China made this achievement.
