Bangalore: Veteran space scientist G Madhavan Nair said Tuesday that Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) unsuccessful bid to soft land on the moon is nothing to be alarmed about, and it would only enable the space agency master complex missions going forward.
The former chairman of ISRO also acknowledged for the first time that there is now no hope to re-establish contact with Chandrayaan-2’s lander ‘Vikram’.
G Madhavan Nair slammed ISRO critics who questioned its present chairman K Sivan’s statement that 98 per cent of Chandrayaan-2’s mission objectives had been achieved, despite an unsuccessful bid to soft land on the moon.
“ISRO is the top-most performer in the country in terms of science and technology and it has been undoubtedly proven by the results over several years. There is a system in place for review and decision making. It’s not a single man show,” Nair stated.
The veteran scientist pointed out that ISRO has made a large number of attempts and used different methodologies to restore the link with the lander, but so far haven’t succeeded.
“That way we can say that they have not been able to make use of that part (lander-rover) of the mission,” Nair pointed out.
Chandrayaan-2’s lander with rover ‘Pragyan’ tucked inside it, lost communication with ground stations 2.1 kms above the lunar surface, minutes before the planned touch-down September 7. Since then, ISRO had been making all possible efforts to restablish the link.
The mission life of lander ‘Vikram’, which had a hard-landing, was one lunar day, equivalent to 14 earth days, which ended last Saturday.
PTI