Chandrayaan 2 landing: Communication from Vikram lost, says ISRO
By Dheeshma Published on 6 Sep 2019 10:26 PM GMT
It was indeed a "terrifying" 15 minutes of wait for ISRO . At 1:45 on Saturday morning 'Vikram' and its rover 'Pragyaan' was on their descent towards the untouched lunar South Pole of the moon. By 1:55 am, Vikram completed its rough breaking phase and began the fine breaking phase. With bated breath, ISRO and 1.3 billion Indians waited to witness the country create history with its biggest space adventure- Chandrayaan 2.
However, the wait was getting much longer than expected, and the faces at ISRO turned nervous.
Later ISRO Chairman K Sivan confirmed the research centre lost communication with Vikram Lander at 2.1 km from Lunar surface and data is being analysed.
PM Narendra Modi, who was present at ISRO, had a pep talk with the scientists and said, "Nation is proud of you, be courageous":
Later the Prime Minister 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
K Sivan had earlier called Chandrayaan 2 "the most complex mission ever undertaken by ISRO".
Vikram was expected to make a historic land near the South Pole of the moon, a region that has been unexplored so far As per a timeline released earlier by ISRO, the lander Vikram was to land at 1:53 am and the rover Pragyan was scheduled to roll down a ramp at 5:19 am. The rover was to then click a photograph of the lander at 5:45 am.
