Won't be fair to call Chandrayaan-2 failure, cost of next mission to get reduced: Minister to House

NEW DELHI: Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) on Thursday postponed the launch of its new-generation earth observation satellite Cartosat-3 by two days to November 27. In Parliament, minister of state for space Jitendra Singh said calling the Rs 970-crore Chandrayaan-2 mission a failure “won’t be fair” as most of the “scientific objectives were fully accomplished” and that setback in Vikram landing has only made India’s resolve stronger.

He said as the orbiter is fully functional, the cost of future missions will get reduced.


According to Isro’s new launch schedule, PSLV-C47 rocket will launch Cartosat-3 and 13 American nano satellites from the second launchpad of Sriharikota at 9.28 am. Isro said about 17 minutes after the lift-off, the 1,625 kg Cartosat-3 will be separated from the rocket and injected into the 509-km polar sun synchronous orbit. This will be followed by the separation and injection of 13 US satellites, which would happen in about eight minutes.

Besides its civilian use for large-scale urban planning, rural resource and infrastructure development, Cartosat-3 will increase space-surveillance capability of security forces. The satellite is highly advanced than its predecessor Cartosat-2 as it will have a powerful resolution of 25 cm and a wider spatial range. All previous surveillance satellites had just 50cm resolution. Cartosat-3, which will also have multi-spectral and hyperspectral capabilities, will help the security forces zoom in on enemy hideouts and terror hubs.

Replying to a query from Trinamool Congress’s Manas Ranjan Bhunia in Rajya Sabha, the minister said, “Technologically, (Chandrayaan-2) launch was successful. Its entry into Earth’s orbit was successful, entry into lunar orbit was successful. Orbiter is very much there. Scientific objectives were fully accomplished which include moon surface mapping, topographical studies, radar-based studies, etc.”

Talking about the hard-landing of Vikram lander, Jitendra Singh said, “It was only in the last, say, about 30 km that this incident or episode took place, which I would not describe as a failure. There might have been some amount of disappointment. But I would like to submit that it would be unfair to describe it as a failure... Orbiter is very much there ... in subsequent attempt, this will cut down the cost as well because the lander is also there.” A day earlier, the minister informed the Lok Sabha in a written reply that the lander hardlanded on Moon’s surface within 500 metres of the designated landing site.

The minister said even advanced countries like the US, which started their space mission much earlier, could gain success in soft-landing only in the eighth attempt. He said there is not a single country which has been able to successfully accomplish soft-landing in less than two attempts.

On newly formed Isro’s commercial arm, he said NewSpace India is working for the application of space technology for ease of living. NewSpace is commercially exploiting research and development work of the space agency, co-produce PSLV and launch satellites through SSLVs.