Chandrayaan-2 was not a failure: Government tells RS

The government has said that it would be unfair to describe Chandrayaan-2 Moon Mission a failure.

Replying to a question from Manas Ranjan Bhunia of the Trinamool Congress, Minister of State for Space Department Jitendra Singh said that procedural and process incidents do take place in scientific pursuits.

"Chandrayaan-2 was a mission keenly watched by everyone, in fact every Indian. There might have been some amount of disappointments as expressed by Hon'ble member. It will be unfair to describe it as a failure," the Minister said in the Upper House.

He noted that not a single country had been able to successfully accomplish soft-landing in less than two attempts.

The Minister said that the US started their space journey much earlier but they could manage soft-landing in their eighth attempt.

India's ambitious and keenly-watched lunar mission Chandrayaan 2 was expected to make its soft landing on the surface of the Moon on September 7. While the whole nation waited with bated breath, the successful moon mission, Chandrayaan 2's lander 'Vikram' lost communication with the ground stations.

There was huge excitement generated around the mission with even Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself present at the Indian Space Research Organisation's Control Centre in Bengalaru at the time, when loss of communication came as a big disappointment.

Replying to supplementary questions on the mission, Minister Jitendra Singh said that there were two aspects of the mission -- scientific and technological -- and on both fronts it was successful.

"Scientific objectives were fully accomplished which include moon surface mapping, topographical studies, radar-based studies etc. Technologically, launch was successful.

"Its entry into earth's orbit was successful, entry into lunar orbit was successful. Orbiter is very much there as you have said," the Minister said.

He stated that in the subsequent attempt, it will cut down on cost.

"It was in the last 30 km that the incident or episode took place which I will not describe as failure," said Jitendra Singh.