ISLAMABAD – India’s space programme suffered a huge setback on Saturdayafter it lost contact with an unmanned spacecraft moments before it was dueto make a historic soft landing on the Moon.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to comfort glum scientists and astunned nation from the lunar programme’s command centre in Banglalore,saying India was “proud” and clasping the visibly emotional mission chiefin a lengthy bear hug.
Blasting off in July, India had hoped to become just the fourth countryafter the United States, Russia and regional rival China to make asuccessful Moon landing, and the first on the lunar South Pole.
But in the early hours of Saturday India time, as Modi looked on andmillions watched with bated breath nationwide, Vikram, the lander namedafter the father of India’s space programme, went silent just 2.1kilometres above the lunar surface.
“The Vikram lander descent was (going) as planned and normal performancewas observed,” Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairmanKailasavadivoo Sivan said.
“Subsequently the communication from the lander to the ground station waslost,” he said in a stunned operations room. “The data is being analysed.”
The Chandrayaan-2 ( “Moon Vehicle 2”) orbiter, which will circle and studythe Moon remotely for a year, is however “healthy, intact, functioningnormally and safely in the lunar orbit”, the ISRO said.Consoler-in-chief
Freshly re-elected Modi had hoped to bask in the glory of a successfulmission, but on Saturday he deftly turned consoler-in-chief in a speech atmission control broadcast live on television and to his 50 million Twitterfollowers.
“Sisters and brothers of India, resilience and tenacity are central toIndia’s ethos. In our glorious history of thousands of years, we have facedmoments that may have slowed us, but they have never crushed our spirit,”he said.
“We have bounced back again … This is the reason our civilisation standstall,” he said in Bangalore. “When it comes to our space programme, thebest is yet to come.”
Chandrayaan-2 took off on July 22 carrying an orbiter, lander and roveralmost entirely designed and made in India, a week after an initial launchwas halted just before blast-off.
ISRO had acknowledged before the soft landing that it was a complexmanoeuvre, which Sivan called “15 minutes of terror”.
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It was carrying rover Pragyan — “wisdom” in Sanskrit — which was due toemerge several hours after touchdown.
The rover was expected to explore craters for clues on the origin andevolution of the Moon, and also for evidence on how much water the polarregion contains.
According to Mathieu Weiss, a representative in India for France’s spaceagency CNES, this is vital to determining whether humans could one dayspend extended periods on the Moon.
It would mean the Moon could be used as a pitstop on the way to Mars, thenext objective of governments and private spacefaring programmes such asElon Musk’s Space X.Ambitious programme
Asia’s third-largest economy also hopes to secure lucrative commercialsatellite and orbiting deals in the competitive market.
China in January became the first to land a rover on the far side of theMoon. In April, Israel’s attempt failed at the last minute when its craftsuffered an engine failure and apparently crashed onto the lunar surface.
The Chandrayaan-2 space mission — India’s most ambitious so far — stood outbecause of its low cost of about $140 million.
The US spent the equivalent of more than $100 billion on its Apollomissions.
India is preparing Gaganyaan, its first manned space mission, with the airforce announcing on Friday that the first level of selection of potentialastronauts was complete.
The South Asian nation also hopes to land a probe on Mars. In 2014, itbecame only the fourth nation to put a satellite into orbit around the RedPlanet. -APP/AFP
