CHANDRAYAAN 2 : The communication was lost with Lander Vikram 2.1 km from the moon's surface. Why wouldn't you call this a failure ?

The communication was lost with Lander Vikram 2.1 km from the moon's surface. Why wouldn't you call this a failure ?

I wouldn’t call it a failure because the mission accomplished most of the hard feats of landing on the moon. It launched successfully, it performed orbital maneuvers successfully, it navigated to another astronomical body successfully, it entered orbit around the moon successfully, and began its braking burn successfully.

The initial parts of the descent went smoothly. But less than two miles above the surface, the trajectory diverged from the planned path. The mission control room fell silent as communications from the lander were lost. A member of the staff was seen patting the back of K. Sivan, the director of India’s space program.

He later announced that the spacecraft was operating as expected until an altitude of 2.1 kilometers, or 1.3 miles. “The data is being analyzed,” he said.

The partial failure of the Chandrayaan-2 mission — an orbiter remains in operation — would delay the country’s bid to join an elite club of nations that have landed in one piece on the moon’s surface.

The makers of Beresheet and Chandrayaan-2 both noted the low cost of their missions — $100 million to $150 million, which is much cheaper than those typically launched by NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA is currently trying to tap into entrepreneurial innovation for upcoming robotic moon missions; the first of these low-cost trips is scheduled to launch in 2021.

It remains to be seen what the crash will mean in India’s domestic politics. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the country’s nationalist leader, has embraced the country’s space program to raise India’s brand on the global stage and make Indians feel fired up about their nation’s growing strength.

Mr. Modi added, “As important as the final result is the journey and the effort. I can proudly say that the effort was worth it and so was the journey.”

The moon mission has been years in the making for ISRO, India’s version of NASA, founded in 1969, when components of rockets were transported by bicycles and assembled by hand.

Everything was going great until communications cut out at 2.1km altitude.
That’s better than most early 1960s USSR and USA moon missions. If you look at the failures in this list, List of missions to the Moon - Wikipedia, then you’ll see that early NASA and Rooskie moon probes were launched like machine guns: spray and pray.

(Pictured: Early space race launch site s
alvoing probes somewhere near the moon.)

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