Indian Space Research Organisation(ISRO) chief Kailasavadivoo Sivan on Saturday stated that the organisation is working on to attempt on a second landing attempt of the Vikram Lander.
Putting all the speculations to rest, the ISRO chief said that ISRO would definitely attempt another landing on Moon’s south pole. Sivan, who was in Delhi to attend IIT-Delhi 50th convocation ceremony said: “We want to demonstrate the technology for Vikram Lander landing. We are working on a plan of action about how to go ahead for Vikram Lander landing.”
The bold effort by Indian scientists to soft-land on the lunar south pole had suffered a glitch on early hours of September 7 after Chandrayaan-2’s Vikram module lost the communication with ground stations, just 2.1 km from the lunar surface during its final descent.
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Had it been successful, India would have been the fourth country to land a spacecraft intact on the Moon’ surface.
Through this ambitious mission, India attempted to discover the dark side of the moon. The mission was to land at the south pole of the moon. While ISRO had managed to successfully place the Chandrayan-2 orbiter in its place, the Vikram Lander had lost contact with the ground stations at the last moment.
Vikram Lander was to launch India’s first moon rover ‘Pragyan’ at the lunar surface.
As explained by ISRO, the mission was to use the moon as a laboratory to better understand Earth’s history. The moon was believed to have been a part of the Earth at one point in time. The water held at the south pole of the moon might be 3-4 billion years old, containing clues of the atmosphere during the earlier days of the solar system.
Besides this, the water may also serve a utilitarian purpose as well in the distant future. Reports also suggested that ISRO would have hunted for Helium-3 as well.
However, the ambitious Chandrayaan 2, ISRO’s most challenging space mission till date, had already made India and its citizens proud. As a collective mission, Chandrayaan 2 had achieved 95 per cent of its objective.
