ISRO Tweeted To Thank Indians For Support After Losing Contact With Chandrayaan-2 Lander

On September 17, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) tweeted to thank all Indians for their support and encouragement after it lost contact with the Chandrayaan-2 lander.

On Twitter, ISRO posted:

This space agency expressed its high appreciation for what Indian citizens have shown although its lander couldn’t complete 50 percent of the expected mission goals on September 07. At that time, ISRO hoped to put its own satellite into the lunar orbit and have a landing craft land on the surface. After that, the lander and a rover would have made some experiments and analyzed the Moon’s outermost layer called a crust.

It was a pity that ISRO couldn’t keep contact with the Chandrayaan-2 after the lander completed nearly 95% of its journey.

If no unexpected situation had happened, the success of both ISRO and the Chandrayaan-2 would have become a historic moment of India. PM Narendra Modi also had a visit to the control room of the Chandrayaan-2, Bengaluru to wait for the magical event. However, the lander couldn’t complete its mission as expected. It is obvious that ISRO was not the first one who fails in space missions, and of course, it won’t be the final, either.

In addition, NASA has made great efforts to help the Indian space agency communicate with the Vikram lander. Its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is using the Deep Space Network to transfer radio signals to this lander with the hope to receive any response from the outer space. Also, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter – NASA’s robotic spacecraft – has flown by the area to look for the Vikram’s landing site.

Indian citizens must feel bad when India just lacked a bit of luck to become the fourth country to touch down on the Moon. However, they have still shown big support and love towards the ISRO on the Internet.

What the ISRO and Chandrayaan-2 have done must not be a failure. At least, the orbiter managed to send back precious data concerning the Moon and the space agency must soon have another try in the future.