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Chandrayaan-2 landing soon! Watch live here:
Lots of women front and center in ISRO Chandrayaan-2 mission control.
30 km to the surface. Chandrayaan-2 is flying mostly horizontally now; trajectory will steepen as its speed decreases.
Trajectory view in mission control looks right down the middle. 28.5 km altitude. Should be steepening rapidly soon.
7 km
4 km
2 km
it's awful quiet
really really quiet guys
It's clear they don't have communication with the spacecraft anymore
Yep, no signal. It doesn't mean it's over, there's more than one reason you can lose comms close to landing, it's just that the likeliest reason is a bad one.
And now a shot of 50 kids in mission control. Sorry kids. Space is hard, but you try again.
Just a reminder to folks that on its way to putting this lander down, India did successfully put its second spacecraft in orbit at the Moon. Chandrayaan-2 orbiter will be up there doing science for a year. Lander would only have lasted 2 weeks. planetary.org/explore/space-…
Have a care for the space folks in your life experiencing flashbacks today
Looks like they've got good data from the orbiter. I'm not sure if this is right but I think they were confirming that the receiver on the orbiter is on so that it could, in theory, receive data from the lander, but there's no sign of transmissions from the lander at any receiver
NASA has Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter at the Moon and should be able to take a picture of the landing site some time within the next month (though its near-polar location may add complications that I don't understand). @LRO_NASA do you have a Chandrayaan-2 imaging plan?
@LRO_NASA "Vikram descender descent was as planned and normal performance observed up to 2.1 km. Subsequently communications was lost. Data is being analyzed."
Official statement from K. Sivan.
Engineers will be working their way down fault trees, and radio folks continuing to try to establish communication. There's nothing for everybody to do now but wait. It seems likely that Vikram crashed, but there's no confirmation, so they'll keep trying.
Modi speaking now. "It is no small thing you have achieved. Be courageous." He claps Sivan on the shoulder.
More accurate quote after several listens: "It's not a small thing that we have achieved. Be courageous." - P.M. Modi to Chandrayaan-2 mission
That's it for me. Sorry, Vikram Lander team. Best wishes for a highly successful Chandrayaan-2 orbiter mission.
P.S. Prime Minister Modi now talking to the kids, a little salve for their disappointment.
Follow @sandygrains for Chandrayaan-2 updates from the ground at ISRO
The day after the attempted Vikram landing, I want to thank @isro for having the courage to show us everything in real time. It meant they failed in public. What a brave thing to do, to invite the entire world along on a risky mission. I'm so grateful.
An ISRO update today: "All the systems and sensors of the Lander functioned excellently until this point and proved many new technologies such as variable thrust propulsion technology used in the Lander." (1/2) isro.gov.in/update/07-sep-…
"The success criteria was defined for each and every phase of the mission and till date 90 to 95% of the mission objectives have been accomplished and will continue contribute to Lunar science , notwithstanding the loss of communication with the Lander." isro.gov.in/update/07-sep-…
