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Vikram was scheduled to touch down on September. 7. This event was India's first attempt at a soft landing on the Moon Current affairs : NASA on Friday released high-resolution images captured by its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) during its flyby of the lunar region where India's ambitious Chandrayaan 2 mission attempted a soft landing near the Moon's uncharted south pole, and found Vikram had a hard landing. The Vikram lander module attempted a soft landing on a small patch of lunar highland smooth plains between Simpelius N and Manzinus C craters before losing communication with ISRO on September 7. "Vikram had a hard landing and the precise location of the spacecraft in the lunar highlands has yet to be determined, NASA said. The scene was captured from a Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera Quickmap fly-around of... read more

We should not be discouraged. India was trying to do something very very difficult, said NASA GSLV-MkIII-M1 rocket carrying Chandrayaan-2 lifts off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, at Sriharikota in Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh   Chandrayaan 2 : United States space agency NASA has said that the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) inspired it with Chandrayaan-2. The space NASA tweeted saying, "Space is hard. We commend @ISRO ’s attempt to land their #Chandrayaan2 mission on the Moon’s South Pole. You have inspired us with your journey and look forward to future opportunities to explore our solar system together". Former NASA Astronaut Jerry Linenger said the lessons learned from India's “bold attempt” to soft land Chandrayaan-2's Vikram module on the lunar surface will help the country's future missions. Linenger, who flew on Russian space station Mir that operated in low Earth orbit between 1986 and 2001, took take part in the live tele...

Vikram, the lander, was lost when it was attempting a "soft" or controlled landing near the south pole of the moon An Isro official said the lander was in an upturned position and it could have been damaged   Chandrayaan 2 : Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) Chief K Sivan said on Sunday Chandrayaan-2’s lander, the Vikram, had been located after the orbiter sent an image of the same but communication has not been established yet. Sivan said Vikram “must have had a hard-landing” on the lunar surface. “We are trying to have contact. It will be communicated soon,” he said. An official from the space agency said the lander was in an upturned position and it could have been damaged. Chandrayaan-2 orbiter has the highest resolution camera (0.3m) used in any lunar mission so far. It will provide high-resolution images, which will be immensely useful to the global scientific community. The space agency is trying to establish communication with lander Vikram, if ...

Conspiracy theories that claimed that the moon landing was faked and that it was all a Hollywood-like cinematic production shot on Earth have been doing the rounds for decades Chandrayaan 2 : Even fifty years after astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon, there are people who still insist that it never happened and that it was a hoax perpetrated by the US government. On July 20, 1969, the Apollo 11 Mission landed two men on the Moon. Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin piloted the lunar module, which detached from the spacecraft and landed on the Moon's surface. Their commander, Neil Armstrong, became the first man on the Moon. He passed away in 2012 at the age of 82. However, conspiracy theories that claimed that the moon landing was faked and that it was all a Hollywood-like cinematic production shot on Earth have been doing the rounds for... read more

'We will continue to try to establish contact for the next 14 days. Future programmes will go as planned', says K Sivan Chandrayaan 2 : After the moon landing mishap, K Sivan, chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) spoke to T E Narasimhan. Edited excerpts: What went wrong at the last minute? Of the four descent phases, the first three were successful. During the last phase, the link was lost and communication could not be established. Experts say the communication channel is on between the lander and the orbiter. We are trying to establish the link with the lander and will continue to try for the next 14 days. How did you locate the lander? The orbiter has clicked a thermal image of (the) lander but there is no communication yet. We are trying to have... read more

Chandrayaan 2, public sector bank mergers and climate change are the other topics opinion writers tackle on the opinion pages. Chandrayaan 2 is almost a metaphor for the Indian economy. The weekend’s disappointment over India’s first moonshot after a febrile build-up resembles the discontent over the anaemic economy after the huge expectations from Narendra Modi’s electoral comeback. On the economic front, the first 100 days of Modis’ second term saw growth slip to a 17-year low (in nominal terms), making the next 100 days are critical for the government to show that the India story is still alive, says the lead edit here. Chandrayaan 2, public sector bank mergers and climate change are the other topics opinion writers tackle on the opinion pages. Kanika Datta sums up the views Landing a craft on the moon has zero practical pay-off, says Ajay Shah. Instead, ISRO should take a leaf out of NASA’s copybook and focus on building the next level of knowledge through intelligent co...

Chandrayaan-2's 27-kg rover is a six-wheeled robotic vehicle named Pragyan, which translates to 'wisdom' in Sanskrit, and is housed inside the lander GSLV-MkIII-M1 rocket carrying Chandrayaan-2 lifts off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, at Sriharikota in Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh    Chandrayaan-2 : ISRO is continuing its efforts to restore link with Chandrayaan-2's lander 'Vikram', but experts say time is running out and possibility of re-establishing communication looks "less and less probable." Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation K Sivan said on Saturday that the space agency will try to establish link with the lander for 14 days. After lander Vikram was located on the lunar surface by Chandrayaan-2's on-board cameras on Sunday, he reiterated that those efforts would continue. A senior official associated with the mission said, "Progressively... as time goes by... it's difficult(to establish link)....

Hours after touchdown, rover Pragyaan will roll out from inside the lander to carry out intense probe of the moon soil with its two payloads Pragyan Rover mounted on the ramp projecting from out of the sides of vikram lander.   Current affairs : The crucial landing of 'Vikram', Chandrayaan-2's moon lander, will be carried out by at least eight onboard equipment in a coordinated manner. 'Vikram' with rover 'Pragyaan' housed inside is scheduled for a powered-descent between 1 am and 2 am on September 7, followed by its touchdown between 1.30 am and 2.30 am. Ahead of the proposed touchdown in the early hours of Saturday, the Isro explained through a video how it will take place. The space agency explained that the machine will be fitted with at least three cameras, Lander Position Detection Camera (LPDC), Lander Horizontal... read more

With this manoeuvre, the required orbit for the Vikram Lander to commence its descent towards the surface of the Moon has been achieved Current affairs : The second de-orbiting manoeuvre for Chandrayaan-2's Vikram lunar lander was performed successfully by the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) on Wednesday. According to Isro, the manoeuvre started at 03:42 hours on September 4, 2019, as planned, using the onboard propulsion system. The duration of the manoeuvre was nine seconds. The Vikram Lander's orbit is 35 km x 101 km. The Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter continues to orbit the Moon in an orbit of 96 km x 125 km, and both the... read more

Chandrayaan-2 will approach Moon on August 20, 2019 and the spacecraft's liquid engine will be fired again to insert the spacecraft into a lunar orbit Current affairs : The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) on Wednesday successfully conducted final orbit raising manoeuvre of Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft. It was carried out at 02:21 am IST. With this, Chandrayaan-2 entered the Lunar Transfer Trajectory. During this maneuver, the spacecraft's liquid engine was fired for about 1203 seconds. Earlier, the spacecraft's orbit was progressively increased five times during July 23 to August 6, 2019. The health of the spacecraft is being continuously monitored from the Mission Operations Complex (MOX) at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bengaluru with support from Indian Deep Space Network... read more

The mission, named Aditya- L1, will be launched in the first half of 2020 Current affairs : After Chandrayaan-2, Isro has planned launch of its solar mission, Aditya-L1, in the first half of 2020 to study the Sun's corona, according to the space agency. Aditya-L1 is meant to observe the corona, which are the outer layers of the Sun, extending to thousands of kilometres.   “How the corona gets heated to such high temperatures is still an unanswered question in solar physics,” Isro stated on its website while sharing information about the mission.

President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Isro and its scientists on this feat GSLV-MkIII-M1 rocket carrying Chandrayaan-2 lifts off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, at Sriharikota in Nellore district of Andhra Pradesh  Current affairs : The mood was euphoric on Monday at the mission control room of the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (Isro’s) Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota. At 2.43 pm the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle-Mk III (GSLV-Mk III), carrying the 3.8-tonne Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft, lifted off from its launchpad. GSLV-Mk III cost Rs 375 crore and Chandrayaan-2 Rs 603 crore. After a technical snag aborting the takeoff on July 15, the space agency succeeded in putting the satellite on the... read more

Isro would be adjusting the travel time by tweaking the earth-bound and the lunar-bound phases, according to officials India’s second Moon mission Chandrayaan-2 lifts off onboard GSLV Mk III-M1 launch vehicle from Satish Dhawan Space Center at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. ISRO had called off the launch on July 15 after a technical snag was detected ahead of the lift Current affairs : Notwithstanding the one-week delay in lift-off, the Chandrayaan-2 mission would likely see the lander and rover modules of the spacecraft making a soft-landing on the lunar surface on the previously fixed date of September 7. Scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) have reworked the Chandrayaan-2 schedule so that it could land on the moon’s south pole as scheduled earlier. For this, Isro would be adjusting the travel time by tweaking the earth-bound and the lunar-bound phases, according to... read more