Chandrayaan 2: ....and a point beyond

Going into space, specifically exploring the Moon, was always one of the biggest dreams people had, even thousands of years ago. From Jules Verne's early writings to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, people have always fantasized about space exploration. Cut to several centuries later, this long held dream has finally come true! 

Chandrayaan-2, Indian Space Research Organization's most ambitious lunar mission was India's second attempt of becoming the first space mission ever to land on the Moon's south pole. Chandrayaan-1, its predecessor had discovered traces of water on the Moon, a groundbreaking discovery in the field of space exploration, which not only benefited India, but humanity as a whole. Chandrayaan-2 also had similar, highly ambitious plans of successfully landing on the south pole of the lunar surface. Unfortunately, the contact with the Vikram lunar lander was lost just a minute before the soft-land had to be executed by the space probe, after coming agonizingly close to the lunar surface.

However, what this space mission has achieved is definitely commendable. The entire project was very well executed with just a meagre budget of Rs.978 crore which is more than five times less than any other moon soft-landing missions. 

Even though the mission did not go exactly as planned, it cannot be called a failure. The Chandrayaan-2 orbiter would continue to monitor the Moon for up to seven years, and the high-resolution images it takes will be vital to future international efforts to land on the Moon. Furthermore, the orbiter would continue to remain in the Moon's orbit and would map the lunar surface to prepare 3-dimensional maps for the same. With all these things in place, we should definitely agree with the ISRO Chief K. Sivan when he boldly stated that the mission was 90-95% successful. 

NASA has planned to send a Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) to collect images of the Vikram Lander to support  the analysis of the ISRO. This goes on to show that these attempts have not only ended the cold war between the space superpowers but have lead to the formation of a global space community, which is healthy for all the participating nations and would definitely contribute to greater discoveries in the fields of science and space exploration in the future. This is also supported by the fact that the entire story of the Indian Lander resonates with the failed Israeli attempt that took place earlier this year. 

The mission was aimed not only to perform a successful soft-landing but also to expand India's footprint in space, and this mission certainly accomplished the latter. It is a great feat for the entire team of scientists at ISRO since the orbiter is now in place, and every step of the mission before the soft landing was a success, starting from the launch of the rocket, (which was, in fact the heaviest payload that India has ever launched) to the textbook perfect orbits in the gravitational fields of the Earth and the Moon. 

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the entire nation after the contact with Vikram Lander was lost and termed this mission as a colossal success, the entire country stood in solidarity with the scientists who spent countless hours working tirelessly towards this goal, and lauded their efforts. Despite all the differences and the prevalence of diverse opinions, this mission had the potential of bringing together the people of a nation, which is definitely exemplary and laudable.