13 minutes later: When Vikram Lander lost signal

Bengaluru, Sep 07: It was about 13 minutes after the Vikram began its descent that communication with the Chandrayaan 2 lander was lost.

The lander failed to make a smooth soft landing and was unable to bring down its speed to the required level.

The failure took place 13 minutes after the descent began hoping to reduce its speed from 6,048 km per hour to 7 km per hour. The reduction to 7 kilometres or lower was required for a soft landing.

While an official announcement about failure was not made at the time of going to press, ISRO chief, K Sivan said that communication with the lander had been lost.

Sivan said, "the descent of Vikram was going on as per plan, and normal performance was observed up to an altitude of at 2.1 km. Subsequently, communication from the lander to the ground station was lost. Data being analysed."

Prime Minister, Narendra Modi who was present at the ISRO centre was briefed by Sivan. Prior to this consultations were held.

The moon lander, Vikram was separated from its orbiting mothership. It performed a series of manoeuvres to lower its altitude for a touchdown between 1.30 am and 2.30 am.

ISRO had termed this operation as tricky and even called it 15 minutes of terror. All around 2.1 kilometres from the surface, contact was lost. The data was being analysed, scientists at ISRO said.

In a tweet, Modi said, "India is proud of our scientists! They've given their best and have always made India proud. These are moments to be courageous, and courageous we will be! Chairman @isro gave updates on Chandrayaan-2. We remain hopeful and will continue working hard on our space programme.