It was a painful moment for the entire nation after ISRO chief Dr K Sivan was broke down in front of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he was leaving the ISRO centre in Bengaluru. PM Modi hugged the senior scientist and condoled him.
Dr K Sivan and his entire crew had worked tirelessly on this mission and for them, it was a heartbreaking moment when they came extremely close, but could not get the desired result.
The communications from Chandrayaan-2’s Vikram lander to ISRO’s ground station was lost just minutes before touchdown.
PM Narendra Modi who was present at the ISRO Centre in Bengaluru, in a tweet consoled the Indian scientists at ISRO and said: “Nation is proud of you.”
“India is proud of our scientists! They’ve given their best and have always made India proud. These are moments to be courageous, and courageous we will be! Chairman @isro gave updates on Chandrayaan-2. We remain hopeful and will continue working hard on our space programme,” Modi tweeted.
Addressing the media, ISRO chairman, K Sivan said that the space agency lost communications with the Vikram lander when the mission was at a height of 2.1 kilometres from the moon’s surface. He also said that the lander’s descent was going normally.
“This is Mission Control Centre. #VikramLander descent was as planned and normal performance was observed up to an altitude of 2.1 km. Subsequently, communication from Lander to the ground stations was lost. Data is being analyzed,” ISRO tweeted.
Failure is the first step to success. USA did it in 12 attempts, Russia did it in 7 attempts and India almost pulled off in its first attempt. Yes, our moon mission didn’t pan out and that’s alright. We tried our best. What a commendable effort by ISRO scientists. The Youth salutes you!