‘Proud’ Modi defiant as Moon landing fails

INDIA’S space programme suffered a huge setback yesterday after losing contact with an unmanned spacecraft moments before it was due to make a historic soft landing on the Moon.

Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, sought to comfort disappointed scientists and a stunned nation from mission control in Bangalore, saying India was still “proud” as he hugged the visibly emotional space agency chief.

After the July blast-off, the emerging Asian power had hoped to become the fourth country after the US, Russia and China to make a successful Moon landing, and the first on the lunar South Pole.

But in the early hours of Saturday, as Mr Modi looked on and millions watched nationwide, the Vikram lander – named after the father of India’s space programme – fell silent 1.3miles (2.1km) above the lunar surface.

Its descent had been going “as planned and normal performance was observed”, Kailasavadivoo Sivan, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman, said.

“Subsequently the communication from the lander ... was lost,” he said after initial applause turned to bewilderment at the operations room. The Chandrayaan-2 orbiter, which will circle and study the Moon remotely for a year, is however “healthy, intact, functioning normally and safely in the lunar orbit”, the ISRO said.

Fresh from re-election Mr Modi deftly turned consolerin-chief in a speech at mission control broadcast live on television and to his 50million Twitter followers.

“Sisters and brothers of India, resilience and tenacity are central to India’s ethos. In our glorious history of thousands of years, we have faced moments that may have slowed us, but they have never crushed our spirit,” he said.

“We have bounced back again. When it comes to our space programme, the best is yet to come.”

Chandrayaan-2 took off on July 22 carrying an orbiter, lander and rover almost entirely designed and made in India, on a mission that cost a relatively modest $140million (£114million).

ISRO had acknowledged before the soft landing that it was a complex manoeuvre, which Mr Sivan called “15 minutes of terror”.