Did a thruster malfunction jeopardise Chandrayaan 2 lander

Bengaluru, Sep 08: The Chandrayaan 2 lander could have crash landed as it may have hit the lunar surface faster than planned.

There could have been a thruster malfunction, which could have jeopardised the mission, sources familiar with the development say. This occurred just before the mission's fine breaking phase.

The Vikram Lander was in autonomous mode. ISRO lost control over the communication link when the lander was at a height of 2.1 kilometres and hence taking control was out of the question.

ISRO chairman, K Sivan said that all efforts were on to re-establish lost communication with the lander. Right now, the communication is lost. But efforts to contact will be made over the next 14 days and if successful, we try to operate the payload, he also said.

A normal performance was observed up to an altitude of 2.1 kilometres, ISRO said after the Vikram Lander lost communication with the ground station, ISRO had said on Saturday.

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 kilometre or lower was required for a soft landing.

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.