India’s space program suffered a huge setback Saturday after it
lost contact with an unmanned spacecraft moments before it was due to make a
historic soft landing on the Moon.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to comfort glum scientists
and a stunned nation from the lunar program’s command centre in Banglalore,
saying India was “proud” and clasping the visibly emotional mission chief in a
lengthy bear hug.
Blasting off in July, the emerging Asian giant had hoped to
become just the fourth country after the United States, Russia and regional
rival China to make a successful Moon landing, and the first on the lunar South
Pole.
But in the early hours of Saturday India time, as Modi looked on
and millions watched with bated breath nationwide, Vikram, the lander named
after the father of India’s space programme, went silent just 2.1 kilometres
(1.3 miles) above the lunar surface.
“The Vikram lander descent was (going) as planned and normal
performance was observed,” Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman
Kailasavadivoo Sivan said.
“Subsequently the communication from the lander to the ground
station was lost,” he said in a stunned operations room. “The data is being
analysed.”
The Chandrayaan-2 (“Moon Vehicle 2”) orbiter, which will circle
and study the Moon remotely for a year, is however “healthy, intact,
functioning normally 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
successful mission, but on Saturday he deftly turned consoler-in-chief in a
speech at mission control broadcast live on television and to his 50 million
Twitter followers.
AFP / Sabrina BLANCHARDIndia aims for the Moon
“Sisters and brothers of India, resilience and tenacity are
central to India’s ethos. In our glorious history of thousands of years, we
have faced moments 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
stands tall,” he said in Bangalore. “When it comes to our space programme, the
best is yet to come.”
Chandrayaan-2 took off on July 22 carrying an orbiter, lander
and rover almost entirely designed and made in India, a week after an initial
launch was halted just before blast-off.
ISRO had acknowledged before the soft landing that it was a
complex manoeuvre, which Sivan called “15 minutes of terror”.
It was carrying rover Pragyan — “wisdom” in Sanskrit — which was
due to emerge several hours after touchdown.
The rover was expected to explore craters for clues on the
origin and evolution of the Moon, and also for evidence on how much water the
polar region contains.
According to Mathieu Weiss, a representative in India for
France’s space agency CNES, this is vital to determining whether humans could
one day spend extended periods on the Moon.
It would mean the Moon could be used as a pitstop on the way to
Mars, the next objective of governments and private spacefaring programs such
as Elon Musk’s Space X.
– Ambitious programme –
Asia’s third-largest economy also hopes to secure lucrative
commercial satellite and orbiting deals in the competitive market.
China in January became the first to land a rover on the far
side of the Moon. In April, Israel’s attempt failed at the last minute when its
craft suffered an engine failure and apparently crashed onto the lunar surface.
The Chandrayaan-2 space mission — India’s most ambitious so far
— stood out because of its low cost of about $140 million. The United States
spent the equivalent of more than $100 billion on its Apollo missions.
India is preparing Gaganyaan, its first manned space mission,
with the air force announcing Friday that the first level of selection of
potential astronauts was complete.
The South Asian nation also hopes to land a probe on Mars. In
2014, it became only the fourth nation to put a satellite into orbit around the
Red Planet.
