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Chandrayaan-2: India's Vikram Lander Presumed to Have Crashed

posted by chromas on Saturday September 07 2019, @03:20AM   Printer-friendly

takyon writes:

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

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday September 07 2019, @01:48PM (1 child)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 07 2019, @01:48PM (#890959) Journal

    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.

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  • (Score: 2) by legont on Saturday September 07 2019, @05:07PM

    by legont (4179) on Saturday September 07 2019, @05:07PM (#891014)

    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.

    Initially, the head of Roscosmos Vladimir Popovkin, suggested that the Fobos-Grunt failure might have been the result of sabotage by a foreign nation.[68][69] He also stated that risky technical decisions had been made because of limited funding. On 17 January 2012, an unidentified Russian official speculated that a U.S. radar stationed on the Marshall Islands may have inadvertently disabled the probe, but cited no evidence.[70] Popovkin suggested the microchips may have been counterfeit,[71][72] then he announced on 1 February that a burst of cosmic radiation may have caused computers to reboot and go into a standby mode.[73][74]

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