LESSONS FROM FAILURES OF ISRO

 

 

 

LESSONS FROM FAILURES OF ISRO

Nikunja Bihari Sahu

              Although the Vikram Lander of Chandrayaan-2 has become quiet in the wee hours of September 7 and   ISRO's chance of establishing communication link with the Lander is fading away as the Moon is going to be shrouded by the nightfall paralyzing the onboard solar panel's power supply, the mission could not be called as a total failure. This is because the orbiter, carrying most of the instruments and payloads, is still active and has been orbiting the Moon in a polar orbit at an altitude of 100 km mapping the surface for its treasure trove of mineralogical resources. Out of the 13 payloads including one from NASA to conduct detailed study of Moon’s topography, mineralogy, and surface chemical composition, 8   are still working.                                      

                Although many nations of the world have sent missions to the Moon in past, landing on the lunar surface has proved to be an uphill task. As the Moon has no atmosphere, the retro rockets have to be fired successfully to slow down the speed of descent so as to ensure a soft landing. Only three countries of the world i.e. United States, Russia and China have been able to demonstrate the technology and had India been able to execute the plan successfully, it would have been the fourth nation in the world to do so . The fact that the    orbiter has spotted Vikram near the South Pole in the tilted position suggests that Vikram might have crash-landed on the Moon damaging the vital communication instruments. It is hoped that ISRO, in subsequent missions, will master the soft landing technology and come out with a flawless execution of landing procedure.          

           It would be unfair to label this mission as a failure.  The near success of Vikram’s landing should be acknowledged.  It took the two space super powers, the United States and Russia, decades to design, plan and execute missions to the Moon. In fact, ISRO was founded shortly after the successful Apollo 11 mission to the Moon in 1969.  We should applaud the hard work of our scientists and engineers in the bygone 50 years of its existence. Many of our national leaders also, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had also expressed full solidarity with the scientists of ISRO who spent many sleepless nights to make our dream come true.  

                 The achievements of the mission are many: First, the performance of ISRO's launch vehicle   GSLV Mk-3 was remarkable as it placed the craft neatly in orbit which  will boost India’s  future launch capabilities and interplanetary missions .Second,  ISRO scientists  managed a series of neatly executed manoeuvres all of which went smoothly  as the orbiter reached the Moon’s orbit on the scheduled day  as planned. Third, the two crucial phases of the soft landing were successful as only the third phase went wayward resulting in a hard landing. Fourth, given that the entire mission was highly complex and unique, ISRO has done a commendable job in boldly planning to send an orbiter to the Moon and soft landing  with a Rover. ISRO claims to have accomplished 90 to 95 per cent of the mission objectives and vows to continue contributing to lunar science despite the loss of the lander. Fifth, the orbiter camera is the highest resolution camera (0.3m) deployed so far in the world and shall continue to provide high resolution images to the global scientific community.  Sixth, ISRO's precise launch and mission management had ensured a long life of almost seven years instead of the planned one year for the orbiter. Even the NASA and many of the world's leading space agencies complimented ISRO's attempt to land on the Moon’s hitherto unexplored South Pole.

                 Many leading nations of the world have taken a number of missions to land on the Moon. USA, for example, took 11 missions to land humans on the Moon. The erstwhile Soviet Union, while at the   peak of the space race in the sixties, took 9 Luna series of missions to soft landed on the Moon. Israel also suffered a setback in April 2019 when its spacecraft Bereshaft crash landed.

                    Although the setback of ISRO will not affect its future missions to the Sun and the Mars, it would have a definite bearing on its ambitious Gaganyaan project in 2022 where three humans are slated to be launched into space. As this is a manned mission intended to fly back the astronauts safely to Earth, the entire mission has to be executed in a flawless manner and no compromise is to be made with the safety of the astronauts. ISRO has to quickly analyze the shortcomings of the Chandrayaan-2 mission and bounce back to demonstrate the missing technology in space so as to ensure credibility and faith in the world community.

 

                                                                                 Education Officer

                                                                                 Regional Science Centre

                                                                                 Bhopal

                                                                                 Phone -8018708858