Chandrayaan 2 - Setback, Set Forward

A high-stakes attempt to land near the lunar south pole failed, but the takeaways of the Chandrayaan-2 mission will lay the path for ISRO’s future deep space projects

- Rekha Dixit And Abhinav Singh/Bengaluru

Six-year-old Bengaluru schoolgirl Jia woke up on the morning of September 7 to see Prime Minister Narendra Modi consoling ISRO chairperson K. Sivan with an embrace on television. She had learnt in school that India was going to land on the moon while she slept. Clearly, something had gone wrong. So we failed, she exclaimed. Her mother consoled her, saying the story does not have a very sad ending, and there is a thick silver lining. Most importantly, the mother realised she could not be indifferent to the subject, but should learn everything about Chandrayaan-2, because clearly, rocket science is the trending topic.

India’s second lunar probe, Chandrayaan-2, aimed to land and walk on the moon, hoping to make history by being the first country to explore its south pole and the first to manage a soft landing in its maiden attempt. One mission objective was “to surpass international aspirations”. The ambition was big, the stakes high, the probability not much in favour. The attempt failed. The earth station lost signal with the probe, Vikram, just 2.1km above its destination. It crashed very close to where it was hoped to have landed elegantly, like a cat, on four feet.

The disappointment was so crushing that the stoic chairman—who had earlier told THE WEEK that failure and success were part of the game—teared up and Modi had to stretch out his arms in that famous “jaadoo ki jhappi”, assuring both Sivan and the country that the attempt was laudable, the journey was jaandaar (robust) and shaandaar (impressive), and so what if Vikram could not control itself in the last leg but rushed to meet the moon.

Sivan recovered enough composure by evening to announce that the mission was 95 per cent successful. The orbiter, with eight payloads, was working well and could outlive its mission life of a year by another six, given its fuel reserves.