Chandrayaan-2’s Vikram lander hard-landed within 500 meters of its proposed landing site. This was informed in the Indian Parliament by Jitendra Singh, the minister of state in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). Singh give this as written reply to a question raised by a MP in Lok Sabha.
The first phase of descent of Vikram Lander was performed nominally from an altitude of 30 kms to 7.4 kms above the moon’s surface and velocity was reduced from 1,683 metres per second to 146 metres per second.
“During the second phase of descent, the reduction in velocity was more than the designed value. Due to this deviation, the initial conditions at the start of the fine braking phase were beyond the designed parameters. As a result, Vikram hard-landed within 500 metres of the designated landing site,” he said.
But the most components of technology demonstration, including the launch, orbital critical manoeuvres, lander separation, de-boost and rough braking phase were successfully accomplished.
All the eight state-of-the-art scientific instruments of the orbiter are performing according to the design and providing valuable scientific data. Data received from the orbiter is being provided continuously to the scientific community.
Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft comprising of orbiter, lander and rover was successfully launched on-board the indigenous GSLV MK III-M1 Mission on July 22. The lunar mission was successfully inserted in the lunar orbit on August 20 after completing four Earth bound manoeuvres and trans-lunar injection.
The Lander ‘Vikram’ was separated, as planned, from the Orbiter on September 2 2019. After two successful de-orbiting manoeuvres, powered descent of the lander was initiated on September 7 to achieve soft landing on the moon surface.
The ISRO is planning to launch Chandrayaan-3 probably in November next year.
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