Chandrayaan 2: Communication Lost With Vikram Lander At 2.1 Km From Moon's Surface Says ISRO

ISRO's historic attempt to safely soft-landing Chandrayaan 2 on the lunar surface, bringing a disappointing end to a 47 day space odyssey, has hit a bit of an unexpected bump.

According to ISRO Chief K Sivan, about 2.1 km from the surface of the moon, Chandrayaan 2's Vikram Lander's communication link was lost with the control room monitoring the lander's descent, even as some tweets started confirming the worst.

ISRO

The journey that started almost a month and a half back from the Satish Dhawan spaceport at Sriharikota has reached a rather suspenseful end -- at least for the moment, in the absence of final confirmation of Chandrayaan 2's status by ISRO.

The final fifteen minutes of touchdown was expected to be the most critical for Chadrayaan 2's journey to the lunar surface. As said by Chairman Dr K Sivan they were the "the most terrifying 15 minutes" which was just 35 km in vertical distance from the orbit.

The rough braking of Vikram Lander began as expected at 1:38 AM IST and was supposed to end with Vikram Lander's successful soft-touchdown at 1:53 AM IST -- enduring the 15 minutes of terror. But obviously something went wrong, probably at the fine-braking stage as the lander had to travel the final few metres to the lunar surface.

It looks like the @isro #Chandrayaan2 Vikram lander has crashed. After the rough braking phase the Doppler curve from @radiotelescoop shows some wiggles, and then, at 20:20:01UTC the signals disappeared... pic.twitter.com/YQzriRslQ3

¡ª Cees Bassa (@cgbassa) September 6, 2019

After the Chandrayaan 2 landing didn't go according to plan, ISRO Chief Dr K Sivan took the floor to confirm that communication was lost with Vikram Lander as it was just 2.1 km from touching the ground on the moon's surface. He mentioned that all data had to be analyzed before making any further announcement about the status of Vikram Lander.

"It's not a small thing that we have achieved with Chandrayaan 2. Be courageous," P.M. Modi said to ISRO's Chandrayaan-2 mission control room full of scientists, engineers and directors.

Hmm, that deviation from plan¡­ pic.twitter.com/CsbqF1XcFY

¡ª Jeff Foust (@jeff_foust) September 6, 2019

Four hours after touchdown, Pragyaan rover was expected to step out of Vikram and collect data from the lunar surface (one of them was inspecting the soil for helium-3 deposits that would have been helpful for future colonization missions, as it could be used to generate fusion energy).

ISRO

The entire Chandrayaan 2 mission costed ISRO back around Rs 978 crore. From this, around Rs 603 crore went for the development of the orbiter, lander, and rover, along with the navigational and ground support network. Remaining Rs 375 crore went to create the GSLV Mk III rocket.

While we wait for the final status of Vikram Lander, we should still remember that we still have Chandrayaan 2's orbiter going around the moon's orbit for the next one year, sending back vital data for scientists about the moon than ever before.