ISRO failed in its attempt to soft-land the Vikram lander on the moon as part of the Chandrayaan-2 mission.
However, given its achievements, ISRO need not hide the setbacks in its maneuvers.
What makes Chandrayaan-2 mission so special?
ISRO provides four reasons for what made the Chandrayaan-2 mission “special”.
Chnadryaan-2 would be -
the first space mission to conduct a soft landing on the moon’s south pole
the first Indian expedition to attempt a landing on lunar surface using home-grown technology
the first Indian mission to explore lunar terrain with home-grown technology
the mission that would make India only the 4th country to soft land on the moon
What happened with the recent failure?
ISRO could not soft-land the Vikram lander on the moon as planned.
ISRO Chairman K. Sivan made it apparent that the Vikram lander had ceased to touch down on predicted lines.
Less than 24 hours of the announcement, Vikram went from being the heart of the Chandrayaan-2 mission to being only 5% of the mission’s objectives.
It was said that 90%-95% of the technology demonstration had already been done.
ISRO also announced that the mission life of the orbiter had now dramatically increased to 7 years from the projected 1 or 2 years.
What is the contention here?
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has witnessed many trials and tribulations.
Despite these, there has not been any major budgetary cuts or public censure over the descending trajectories of ISRO’s satellites.
This raises the troubling question of why ISRO feels the need to retrospectively change the narrative of the Chandrayaan-2 mission and hide the setback.
Moreover, with Russia withdrawing from the earlier plan to provide the lander, India decided to design a lander and rover on its own.
It is now hard to understand how such an iconic module that shows India’s ability to design a space vehicle suddenly became only 5% of the overall mission objective.
Where does Chandrayaan-2 stand now?
With the special aspect missing, the Chandrayaan-2 is now in the league of its predecessor Chandrayaan-1, launched in 2008.
Chandrayaan-1 included a lunar orbiter and a moon impact probe that crash-landed on the lunar equatorial surface.
The key difference is that Chandrayaan-2, propelled by the GSLV Mk-III rocket, went all the way into a lunar orbit.
This proved that ISRO had mastered the nuances of the cryogenic engine, which allows rockets capable of carrying heavier payloads to be designed.
This is going to be what truly propels India into the league of space powers.
And with the Chandrayaan-2 mission, ISRO only needs to explain its setbacks, not hide them for the cause of national pride.
