ZCZC
BFF-29
INDIA-SPACE-MOON-ECONOMY
India loses contact with Moon lander
BANGALORE, India, Sept 7, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – India’s space programme
suffered a huge setback Saturday after losing 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 mission control in Bangalore, saying India was still
“proud” and clasping the visibly emotional space agency head in a lengthy
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 local time, as Modi looked on and
millions watched nationwide with bated breath, the Vikram lander — named
after the father of India’s space programme — went silent just 2.1
kilometres (1.3 miles) above the lunar surface.
Its descent had been 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 after initial applause turned to bewilderment at the
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.
“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,” he added. “When it comes to our space
programme, the best is yet to come.”
Other Indians also took to Twitter to offer words of encouragement. “The
important thing is we took off and had the Hope and Belief we can,” said
Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan.
Indian media offered succour by quoting a NASA factsheet that said out of
109 lunar missions in the past six decades, 48 have failed.
Chandrayaan-2 took off on July 22 carrying an orbiter, lander and rover
almost entirely designed and made in India — the mission cost a relatively
modest $140 million — 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 to scour the Moon’s surface, including
for water.
According to Mathieu Weiss, a representative in India for France’s space
agency CNES, this is vital to determining whether humans could spend extended
periods on the Moon.
That would mean the Moon being used one day as a pitstop on the way to
Mars — the next objective of governments and private spacefaring programmes
such as Elon Musk’s Space X.
– ‘Space superpower’ –
In March Modi hailed India as a “space superpower” after it shot down a
low-orbiting satellite, a move prompting criticism for the amount of “space
junk” created.
Asia’s third-largest economy also hopes to tap into the commercial
possibilities of space.
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
apparently crashed onto the lunar surface.
India is also preparing Gaganyaan, its first manned space mission, and
wants to land a probe on Mars.
In 2014, it became only the fourth nation to put a satellite into orbit
around the Red Planet, and in 2017 India’s space agency launched 104
satellites in a single mission.
The country’s principal scientific adviser, K Vijay Raghavan, described
Chandrayaan-2 as “very complex, and a significant technological leap from
previous missions of ISRO” in a series of tweets on Saturday.
Raghavan said the orbiter will help India better understand the Moon’s
evolution, mapping minerals and water molecules “using its eight state-of-
the-art scientific instruments”.
“After a moment of despondency, it is back to work!! It is inspirational
to see this characteristic of science in collective action. Kudos to ISRO,”
he added.
BSS/AFP/ARS/1855 hrs