Earlier Mission Was Success-Based'; This One Also Factors In Failures: ISRO Chief On Chandrayaan-3

Chandrayaan-3 has been designed keeping in mind everything that can go wrong, the chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) has said, describing what he called as a switch to a "failure-based design" from the "success-based" approach of the last moon mission spacecraft, which failed in landing intact.

- Soumya Pillai

Speaking to HT in an interview ahead of the Chandrayaan-3 launch scheduled on July 14, Isro chief S Somnath said the Indian space agency has perfected the part of reaching up to the moon. But it was the landing that the agency is working on.

"Instead of doing a success-based design, which we did in Chandrayaan-2, we are going forward with a failure-based design for Chandrayaan-3. We have analysed all the things that can go wrong and have tried to prepare for it," he said.

The analysis from the Chandrayaan-2 mission, which launched on July 22, 2019 and eventually made what the space agency described as a "hard landing" on September 6, unearthed three mistakes that occurred.

"The first challenge was that the five engines that were used for retardation (reduction of velocity), developed slightly higher thrust than was intended," he said, explaining that this excess led to a cascade of small problems that began accumulating, including a lack of stability during a phase when the craft is supposed to be steady in order to take pictures.