India’s space agency lost contact with with a lunar lander on Friday, throwing into question whether it successfully completed the historic mission to land on the moon’s south pole.
The Chandrayaan- 2’s Vikram lander appeared to be on its way to landing on the south pole before images on a computer screen following it appeared to freeze.
Then an official with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) made a solemn announcement at about 4: 47 pm ET.
“The communications from the lander to ground station was lost. The data is being analyzed,” ISRO chief Kailasavadivoo Sivan announced to mission control.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi sat in a glass-enclosed room, above a small army of ISRO personnel at mission control in the southern city of Bengaluru.
And at 5: 03 PM ET, Modi issued a statement congratulating the space agency – no matter the result.
“India is proud of our scientists! They’ve given their best and have always made India proud,”the prime minister tweeted. “These are moments to be courageous, and courageous we will be!”
A successful landing would have made Indiaone of four nations to put a craft on the moon, and the first to touch down near the lunar south pole.
Only the US, Russia and China have landed spacecraft on the moon.An attempt by Israelin April failed.
The Chandrayaan- 2 orbiterlaunched into space on July 22and has been circling the moon since Aug. 20.
The 3, 200 – pound lander is carrying a six-wheeled rover named Pragyan as well as a suite of scientific instruments.
Plans call for the Vikram lander to touch down on a relatively flat plain between two craters. But like all landings on other celestial bodies, this will be a tricky one because of the complicated sequence of rocket firings needed to bring a spacecraft slowly to the surface.
In a press briefing in August, ISRO chairman Sivan called these sequences the mission’s “most terrifying moments.”
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