K Sivan gets emotional after ISRO loses contact with Vikram lander, Narendra Modi consoles him, says 'you made India proud'

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An emotional moment played out at Indian Space Research Organisation's Bengaluru centre Saturday, when the agency's chief scientist K Sivan welled up in tears after India's first-ever attempt to land a rover on Moon appeared to have failed just moments before landing. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was in Bengaluru to watch the landing live with ISRO scientists, warmly hugged and consoled the ISRO chief.

In his encouraging address to the scientists, Modi asked ISRO scientists not to get disheartened by the hurdles in the moon mission Chandrayaan-2 and asserted that there will be a "new dawn".

ISRO's plan to soft land Chandrayaan-2's Vikram module on the Lunar surface did not go as per script in the early hours of Saturday, with the lander losing communication with ground stations during its final descent. The rover came apparently gathered unplanned momentum just before landing and lost communication merely  2.1 kilometre from the moon's surface.

Addressing the scientists hours after ISRO announced that it had lost communication with the lander, he also said that the country's determination to land on the moon has become even stronger.

"We came very close, but we need to cover more ground.... Learnings from today will make us stronger and better," he told the scientists, adding, "The best is yet to come in our space programme. India is with you."

The lander had completed the first 'rough braking' part of its descent, in which four of the module’s propulsion engines were fired at the same time to lower its speed significantly. The second "fine braking" part of the mission followed, towards the end of which we saw the first sign of something wrong. The Chandrayaan 2 orbiter, which is still in good health will be listening to any communication from the lander. This also means, that a major part of the ISRO's Moon mission is still a success.



from Firstpost India Latest News https://ift.tt/2HRbBOS
FP Staff

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