Vikram lander of the Chandrayaan-2 mission lost contact due to ‘hard braking’ and then made a hard landing on the surface of the moon when it lost communications with ISRO in September, MoS PMO Jitendra Singh told the Lok Sabha in a written response on Wednesday. The minister was responding to a question by BJP MP Kirti Vardhan Singh about the reasons for the failure of the Vikram lander.
The government stated that the first phase of descent was carried out smoothly, but during the second phase, the velocity was reduced more than the designed value, which means extra braking was applied, and that led to a deviation.
“Due to this deviation, the initial conditions at the start of the fine braking phase were beyond the designed parameters. As a result, Vikram hard landed within 500 m of the designated landing site,” the government said, and added that the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter continues to study the moon and is sending back information successfully.
“With regards to the scientific objectives, all the eight state of the art scientific instruments of the orbiter are performing as per the design and providing valuable scientific data. Due to the precise launch and orbital maneuvers, the mission life of the Orbiter is increased to seven years. The data received from the orbiter is being provided continuously to the scientific community,” the government said.
On September 7, Vikram Lander had attempted to make a soft landing on the south side of the moon. However, the attempt was unsuccessful as ISRO lost contact with the lander, Vikram, minutes before it was supposed to land at the designated spot. Eventually, ISRO ceased its attempts to contact Vikram. News agency PTI recently reported that ISRO is now planning to attempt another soft landing on the moon next year, tentatively by November 2020.