After Chandrayaan 1, another prestigious mission launched by ISRO was Chandrayaan 2.
Chandrayaan 2 was one of the biggest projects by ISRO and it carried with it many hopes and expectations. The main objective of the mission was to demonstrate the ability to soft-land on the lunar surface and to operate a robotic rover on the surface.
A ray of hope and expectations from the mission began when Chandrayaan 2 successfully entered the lunar orbit on 20 August 2019. And Lander (Vikram) along with Rover (Pragyan) separated from the orbit on 2 September 2019 and was moving on its way towards the moon.
Stepping towards more success, Chandrayaan 2 on 14 August 2019 successfully entered ‘Lunar Transfer Trajectory’. And Chandrayaan 2 would make India the 4th nation to soft-land a rover on Moon after Russia, China and US.
On 7 September, India attempted to make a soft landing on the lunar surface. Around 1:38 on Saturday, Vikram lander began its final descent to the surface of the moon. Around six minutes after it was to descent, the Vikram lander successfully completed the rough- breaking phase; this can be added to the success story of Chandrayaan 2.
But unfortunately, Vikram lander lost contact with ISRO centre about 13 minutes after it began its descent. Lander travelled around 585 km in a parabolic path before it lost contact.
ISRO still makes the nation proud with a successful journey of Chandrayaan 2. And it has most importantly added successful notes for the coming ISRO missions.
As Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam said when ISRO’s SLV-3 mission crashed “When failure occurred, the leader of the organisation owned the failure. When success came, he gave it to his team. The best management lesson I have learned did not come to me from reading books; it came from the experience”.
Success and future are always the part of the journey and the experience which we gain from it is remembered forever.
The story of Chandrayaan 2 will always remain with the country and the hardship of ISRO towards the number of incredible missions will keep on making the nation proud.