An image of India’s Chandrayaan-2 lander broadcast today by India’s space agency
INDIAN SPACE RESEARCH ORGANISATION
By Science News Staff
Mission controllers lost communication with India’s Chandrayaan-2 lander this afternoon, shortly before it was expected to settle on the moon’s surface.
The descent was going smoothly until the lander was about 2 kilometers above the surface, an Indian Space Research Organisation staffer at the mission control center in Bengaluru said. At that point, “Communication from [the] lander to [the] ground station was lost. The data is being analyzed,” the staffer said.
India is trying to become the fourth nation to place a spacecraft softly on the lunar surface, after Russia, the United States, and China.
Click here to learn more about the mission’s background and goals.
Come back to ScienceInsider for more coverage of the Chandrayaan-2 mission.
Source: Science Mag