ISRO lose contact with Chandrayaan-2 lander during final descent
Following a historic July 22 launch on a GSLV Mk-III rocket from the east coast of India, the Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft – the robotic lander and rover, specifically – attempted a soft landing on the surface of the Moon on Friday. All was proceeding to plan until just 2km above the surface when telemetry was lost and the vehicle will have likely crashed into the lunar surface.
[...] The Vikram lander was aiming to softly touch down about 350 kilometers (218 miles) away from the South Pole-Aitken Basin rim on Friday evening. However, with all proceeding to plan, including the braking phase of the mission ahead of final descent, telemetry was lost.
[...] Although no explanation was provided, it is clear the mission has failed.
Also at NYT and India Today.
Previously: Chandrayaan-2 Updates: Lunar Orbit Insertion and Lunar Orbit Maneuver
Related Stories
August 20, 2019
Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI) maneuver was completed successfully today (August 20, 2019). The duration of maneuver was 1738 seconds beginning from 0902 hrs IST. With this, Chandrayaan-2 was successfully inserted into a Lunar orbit. The orbit achieved is 114 km x 18072 km.
Following this, a series of orbit maneuvers will be performed on Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft to enable it to enter its final orbit passing over the lunar poles at a distance of about 100 km from the Moon's surface.
Subsequently, the lander will separate from the Orbiter and enters into a 100 km X 30 km orbit around the Moon. Then, it will perform a series of complex braking maneuvers to soft land in the South polar region of the Moon on September 7, 2019.
The health of the spacecraft is being continuously monitored from the Mission Operations Complex (MOX) at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bengaluru with support from Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) antennas at Bylalu, near Bengaluru. All the systems of Chandrayaan-2 are healthy.
The next Lunar bound orbit maneuver is scheduled tomorrow (August 21, 2019) between 1230-13:30 hrs IST.
August 21, 2019
Second Lunar bound orbit maneuver for Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft was performed successfully today (August 21, 2019) beginning at 1250 hrs IST as planned, using the onboard propulsion system. The duration of the maneuver was 1228 seconds. The orbit achieved is 118 km x 4412 km.
All spacecraft parameters are normal.
The next Lunar bound orbit maneuver is scheduled on August 28, 2019 between 0530 - 0630 hrs IST.
Previously:
Chandrayaan-2 Launch: How to Watch First Mission to the Moon's South Pole Mon 20190722 @ 0913 UTC
Scrubbed Chandrayaan 2 Mission to Moon's South Pole to Launch on Mon July 22 0913 UTC
India's Lunar Spacecraft Launches Sunday on First-Ever Mission to Moon's South Pole
India to Launch Combined Orbiter/Lander/Rover Mission
The lander module from India's moon mission was located on the lunar surface on Sunday, one day after it lost contact with the space station, and efforts are underway to try to establish contact with it, the head of the nation's space agency said.
The Press Trust of India news agency cited Indian Space and Research Organization chairman K. Sivan as saying cameras from the moon mission's orbiter had located the lander. "It must have been a hard landing," PTI quoted Sivan as saying.
[...] The space agency said it lost touch with the Vikram lunar lander on Saturday as it made its final approach to the moon's south pole to deploy a rover to search for signs of water.
A successful landing would have made India just the fourth country to land a vessel on the lunar surface, and only the third to operate a robotic rover there.
The space agency said Saturday that the lander's descent was normal until 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from the lunar surface.
Previously: Chandrayaan-2: India's Vikram Lander Presumed to Have Crashed
NASA (USA's National Aeronautics and Space Administration) reports that India's Vikram Lander has been Found:
The Chandrayaan 2 Vikram lander was targeted for a highland smooth plain about 600 kilometers from the south pole; unfortunately the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) lost contact with their lander shortly before the scheduled touchdown (Sept. 7 in India, Sept. 6 in the United States). Despite the loss, getting that close to the surface was an amazing achievement. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera team released the first mosaic (acquired Sept. 17) of the site on Sept. 26 and many people have downloaded the mosaic to search for signs of Vikram. Shanmuga Subramanian contacted the LRO project with a positive identification of debris. After receiving this tip, the LROC team confirmed the identification by comparing before and after images. When the images for the first mosaic were acquired the impact point was poorly illuminated and thus not easily identifiable. Two subsequent image sequences were acquired on Oct. 14 and 15, and Nov. 11. The LROC team scoured the surrounding area in these new mosaics and found the impact site (70.8810°S, 22.7840°E, 834 m elevation) and associated debris field. The November mosaic had the best pixel scale (0.7 meter) and lighting conditions (72° incidence angle).
The debris first located by Shanmuga is about 750 meters northwest of the main crash site and was a single bright pixel identification in that first mosaic (1.3 meter pixels, 84° incidence angle). The November mosaic shows best the impact crater, ray and extensive debris field. The three largest pieces of debris are each about 2x2 pixels and cast a one pixel shadow.
See the NASA article for before/after pictures of the impact site.
Previously:
NASA Lunar Probe Will Help Search for India's Lost Moon Lander
Time is Running Out for India to Establish Contact With its Lunar Lander
India Locates Lander Lost on Final Approach to Moon
Chandrayaan-2: India's Vikram Lander Presumed to Have Crashed
Chandrayaan-2 Updates: Lunar Orbit Insertion and Lunar Orbit Maneuver
Chandrayaan-2 Launch: How to Watch First Mission to the Moon's South Pole Mon 20190722 @ 0913 UTC
Scrubbed Chandrayaan 2 Mission to Moon's South Pole to Launch on Mon July 22 0913 UTC
India's Lunar Spacecraft Launches Sunday on First-Ever Mission to Moon's South Pole
India to Launch Combined Orbiter/Lander/Rover Mission
India's Chandrayaan-2 Moon Mission Planned for 2018
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 07 2019, @03:26AM (3 children)
First the Israeli lander crashes, now India's? Sounds like someone is defending the moon.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 07 2019, @08:15AM
It's where the secret Nazi moon base is that is shaped like a swastika. They don't know that war ended. Maybe if the Israelis painted Hitler's face on the lander, then they will stop shooting them down. Of course if they find any Jewish or Brown people stuff onboard, all bets are off.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 07 2019, @11:15AM
Yes, Physics, more specifically, Gravity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 07 2019, @01:55PM
They were in too much of a curry to land.
(Score: 3, Funny) by CZB on Saturday September 07 2019, @03:49AM
Man, those nasa critics are going to gloat so hard. Somebody has to make it up there and prove/disprove the Apollo missions!
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Saturday September 07 2019, @04:13AM (3 children)
"India's Vikram Lander Presumed to Have Crashed"
Of course, they tried rebooting it?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Saturday September 07 2019, @05:25AM (1 child)
It's India. They probably did the partition wrong.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Saturday September 07 2019, @08:12AM
"Did you do the needful?!!!"
"I thought *you* were doing the needful!!"
Ok, maybe too soon.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 07 2019, @03:35PM
Copied from earlier story...
The descent parachute deployed as planned but failed to slow the lander.
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday September 07 2019, @04:13AM (6 children)
How Soviets managed to do it in 1966 - almost exactly 53 years ago.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Saturday September 07 2019, @05:23AM (1 child)
The USSR had extensive experience building ICBMs. They were the first to launch a satellite, and to put a man in orbit. I'd say it was their experience, combined with parts that were using "old school" technology that might have been more robust. India hasn't even launched a crewed mission with their own rockets yet, so as far as experience is concerned the USSR was ahead of where India is now.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 08 2019, @03:07AM
Fact alert:
There was/is something particularly difficult for landing a.. lander... at this surface of the moon. India and Russia entered an agreement some years ago where India was supposed to build the orbiter and Russia was supposed to build lander. Then Russia gave up and pulled out of the agreement after which India said it will do the lander itself. So it is not like Russia has the know-how. But I think India will get there.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 07 2019, @05:24AM
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday September 07 2019, @01:48PM (1 child)
I was wondering just how many have made it into the elite social club of landing someone/something on the moon. So far, it's just the USSR, China, and the US, right? And, similar to the US, the Russians haven't been back for a re-do in decades. That makes China the only recent success, I believe.
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday September 07 2019, @05:07PM
Russians wanted to do Fobos and failed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fobos-Grunt [wikipedia.org] (the last success of interplanetary mission was Vega 2 in 1985
The managers of the project blame it on the US sabotage though.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 07 2019, @01:54PM
It was a lot easier. Software project managers hadn't been invented yet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 07 2019, @07:36AM (1 child)
Wait for it!!!
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress [archive.org], Robert Heinlein, deceased.
(Score: 2) by rylyeh on Sunday September 08 2019, @01:03AM
Yes!
"a vast crenulate shell wherein rode the grey and awful form of primal Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss."
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Saturday September 07 2019, @08:32AM (7 children)
I expect they outsourced writing the software to India. You should never trust software written by those clowns..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 07 2019, @09:26AM (6 children)
Indeed,
one of my last experiences before quitting full-time IT was debugging a bit of code outsourced to Indian developers, it was thrown in my direction as it looked as if it was mostly doing the job, but then unexpectedly crashed horribly...there was much evidence of Messrs Cuttie & Pastie in the code, and it was obvious that they didn't understand what the code was doing, so, leaving aside any problems on the hardware side (and, wearing my Electronics hat, I have horrible memories of years of repairing board faults on dodgy Indian made X-terminals back in the day, bought by the PHB to save a few shekels), based on exposure to contract software originating from India, what happened to their probe does not surprise me in the least.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday September 07 2019, @11:59AM (1 child)
For $141 million, they got themselves a working Moon orbiter. So not a total loss.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 08 2019, @11:21PM
For $141 million, they could've got themselves a working sewer system. But, like the Tijuana river into San Diego... they let the shit run downhill.
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday September 07 2019, @05:17PM (3 children)
Most Indians were taught using classic Russian books and methods. At least as far as math and physics are concerned. Why such a difference?
My own little theory and observations are that it is not because Indians are less bright, but because they, as well as many other Asians, do not want to be "workers". They want to be managers and owners. So even on a software development path, an Indian does not care about software. He only cares about promotion to the management. Such approach woks for him, but rockets would not fly.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 08 2019, @12:10AM
So it looks like they have been brainwashed into thinking abstract and meta instead of doing actual useful work.
Just like the khazar jews. Also, Indians seem to be friendly with the rothschild-owned khazar zionist israeli jews.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 08 2019, @03:21AM
As an India let me just teach you so you don't overthink it and strain your brain noodles. India produces shit code because that is what is expected of them. The western 'outsource' 'managers' are under the impression that people in India are all relaxing, dreaming of becoming a manager (or god forbid, "owner") so they in all my experience every single time, give ridiculous deadlines with poorly explained requirements. The general perception that everyone there is just incompetent doesn't help either, creating a chicken and egg problem. Close to 99% of the work that comes to India is UI development. I hope you get the picture. Plus the competition in India... let us just say that if you don't know anything about it. Damn Frenchmen go to strike on rising petrol price, and Americans elect Trump. Meanwhile, half the people in India don't earn enough to buy a liter of gas each day.
And one more thing - the managers get paid a decent salary, software developers get treated like a cattle in an imported American culture of shitting on nerds. You get what you pay for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 08 2019, @05:17AM
Early U.S. and Soviet Moon landing attempts ended in failure. North Korea can't get missiles or nukes to work properly on the first try. India can't nail its first Moon landing attempt.
The lesson is that trial and error is still needed for newcomers even if the pioneers have already shown how to do it.