Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Chandrayaan-2" in English language version.
Lander (Vikram) is undergoing final integration tests. Rover (Pragyan) has completed all tests and waiting for the Vikram readiness to undergo further tests.
The first phase of descent was performed nominally from an altitude of 30 km to 7.4 km above the moon surface. The velocity was reduced from 1683 m/s to 146 m/s. During the second phase of descent, the reduction in velocity was more than the designed value. Due to this deviation, the initial conditions at the start of the fine braking phase were beyond the designed parameters. As a result, Vikram hard-landed within 500 m of the designated landing site.
"Mr Sivan's remarks have been met with criticism from scientists who said it was too early for ISRO to term the mission a success, especially since its most important goal - to land a rover on the Moon's surface that can gather crucial data - remains unrealised".
Making a throttleable engine of 3 kilonewtons or 4 kilonewtons is a totally new development for us. But we wanted to make use of available technologies. We have a LAM [liquid apogee motor] with a 400 newtons thruster, & we have been using it on our satellites. We enhanced it to 800 newtons. It was not a major, new design change.
Mobility of the Rover in the unknown lunar terrain is accomplished by a Rocker bogie suspension system driven by six wheels. Brushless DC motors are used to drive the wheels to move along the desired path and steering is accomplished by differential speed of the wheels. The wheels are designed after extensive modelling of the wheel-soil interaction, considering the lunar soil properties, sinkage and slippage results from a single wheel test bed. The rover mobility has been tested in the lunar test facility wherein the soil simulant, terrain and the gravity of moon are simulated. The limitations w.r.t slope, obstacles, pits in view of slippage/sinkage have been experimentally verified with the analysis results.
"This is unlike the ISRO's previous record. For instance, after the failure of an operational fourth flight of the heavy lift GSLV rocket — the GSLV-F02 mission — on 10 July 2006, a 15-member FAC was tasked with providing a report in a month. After the report was submitted to the government, ISRO made the details public on 6 September 2006, on its website. In 2010, when GSLV D3, a developmental flight and the fifth heavy lift GSLV rocket, failed after launch on 15 April 2010, an FAC report was submitted with the government on 24 May 2010. Details of the report were made public on 9 July 2010. The same year, when GSLV F06, an operational sixth flight for GSLV rocket, failed on 25 December 2011, ISRO went public on 31 December 2011, with findings of an analysis of failure done by a preliminary FAC comprising space experts".
The name Chandrayaan means "Chandra- Moon, Yaan-vehicle", –in Indian languages (Sanskrit and Hindi), – the lunar spacecraft.
Chandrayaan 2's Rover is a 6-wheeled robotic vehicle named Pragyan, which translates to "wisdom" in Sanskrit.
He admitted that he mentioned in his book the lack of clarity in connection with the announcement of the failure of the Chandrayaan-2 mission. During the time of landing, it was not clearly said that there was communication failure and it would crash land, he said. "I believe that a good practice is to tell what has actually happened. It will increase transparency in the organisation. So I referred to that particular incident in the book," Mr Somanath added.
As solar energy powers the system, a place with good visibility and area of communication was needed. Also, the place where the landing takes place should not have many boulders and craters. The slope for landing should be less than 12 degrees. The South pole has a near-flat surface, with good visibility and sunlight available from the convenience point of view.
On being persistently asked by the media on Wednesday why ISRO was not being transparent about the fate of the lander as the entire nation was waiting with bated breath for a successful landing, Sivan finally said, "Yes, yes...it is in pieces...!"
Question that remains to be answered by ISRO is where "the proof for what they have been claiming. Why no photographs or a video of the Lander's undocking from the Lunar Orbiter have been made public till now. Only an objective probe will find answers to the questions regarding Chandrayaan-2 and what led to the Lander's failure. There are also many lapses that should make the citizens of India, who fund ISRO's working, sit up straight
He further alleges that the chairman, instead of stating the truth that it was an error in the software that had caused the failure in the landing of Chandrayaan 2, declared that contact could not be established with the lander. Sivan made several changes to the Chandrayaan 2 mission, which started when Kiran Kumar was the chairman. Excessive publicity also affected the Chandrayaan 2 mission adversely.
Chandrayaan-2 would be a lone mission by India without Russian tie-up.
"However, except for sketchy information, ISRO has shied away from sharing its own analysis of the crash".
"That a software glitch was at fault was known only subsequently. However, the crashing of the lander was known on that day itself (September 6, 2019). There was no point in calling it a communication failure... [as Chairman Sivan had described it]. However, every Chairman can choose what they communicate. I believe that whatever success or failure happens should be transparently communicated. I'm not criticising Dr. Sivan though," said Mr. Somanath.
"The chairman also released a statement Friday, saying 90 to 95% of mission objectives have already been met. The statement was met with much criticism due to a lack of transparency on the calculation of these percentages".
The work on Chandrayaan-3 is also going on; it should be launched in the next 16 months or so.
"Misra called attention to ISRO's top-down working culture and inadequate leadership, particularly in the face of Chandrayaan-2 having failed to execute its surface mission because the lander crashed on the Moon's surface instead of touching down".
Chandrayaan-2 would be a lone mission by India without Russian tie-up.
"This is unlike the ISRO's previous record. For instance, after the failure of an operational fourth flight of the heavy lift GSLV rocket — the GSLV-F02 mission — on 10 July 2006, a 15-member FAC was tasked with providing a report in a month. After the report was submitted to the government, ISRO made the details public on 6 September 2006, on its website. In 2010, when GSLV D3, a developmental flight and the fifth heavy lift GSLV rocket, failed after launch on 15 April 2010, an FAC report was submitted with the government on 24 May 2010. Details of the report were made public on 9 July 2010. The same year, when GSLV F06, an operational sixth flight for GSLV rocket, failed on 25 December 2011, ISRO went public on 31 December 2011, with findings of an analysis of failure done by a preliminary FAC comprising space experts".
The name Chandrayaan means "Chandra- Moon, Yaan-vehicle", –in Indian languages (Sanskrit and Hindi), – the lunar spacecraft.
As solar energy powers the system, a place with good visibility and area of communication was needed. Also, the place where the landing takes place should not have many boulders and craters. The slope for landing should be less than 12 degrees. The South pole has a near-flat surface, with good visibility and sunlight available from the convenience point of view.
Chandrayaan 2's Rover is a 6-wheeled robotic vehicle named Pragyan, which translates to "wisdom" in Sanskrit.
Lander (Vikram) is undergoing final integration tests. Rover (Pragyan) has completed all tests and waiting for the Vikram readiness to undergo further tests.
Mobility of the Rover in the unknown lunar terrain is accomplished by a Rocker bogie suspension system driven by six wheels. Brushless DC motors are used to drive the wheels to move along the desired path and steering is accomplished by differential speed of the wheels. The wheels are designed after extensive modelling of the wheel-soil interaction, considering the lunar soil properties, sinkage and slippage results from a single wheel test bed. The rover mobility has been tested in the lunar test facility wherein the soil simulant, terrain and the gravity of moon are simulated. The limitations w.r.t slope, obstacles, pits in view of slippage/sinkage have been experimentally verified with the analysis results.
On being persistently asked by the media on Wednesday why ISRO was not being transparent about the fate of the lander as the entire nation was waiting with bated breath for a successful landing, Sivan finally said, "Yes, yes...it is in pieces...!"
The first phase of descent was performed nominally from an altitude of 30 km to 7.4 km above the moon surface. The velocity was reduced from 1683 m/s to 146 m/s. During the second phase of descent, the reduction in velocity was more than the designed value. Due to this deviation, the initial conditions at the start of the fine braking phase were beyond the designed parameters. As a result, Vikram hard-landed within 500 m of the designated landing site.
"However, except for sketchy information, ISRO has shied away from sharing its own analysis of the crash".
Question that remains to be answered by ISRO is where "the proof for what they have been claiming. Why no photographs or a video of the Lander's undocking from the Lunar Orbiter have been made public till now. Only an objective probe will find answers to the questions regarding Chandrayaan-2 and what led to the Lander's failure. There are also many lapses that should make the citizens of India, who fund ISRO's working, sit up straight
"Mr Sivan's remarks have been met with criticism from scientists who said it was too early for ISRO to term the mission a success, especially since its most important goal - to land a rover on the Moon's surface that can gather crucial data - remains unrealised".
"Misra called attention to ISRO's top-down working culture and inadequate leadership, particularly in the face of Chandrayaan-2 having failed to execute its surface mission because the lander crashed on the Moon's surface instead of touching down".
"The chairman also released a statement Friday, saying 90 to 95% of mission objectives have already been met. The statement was met with much criticism due to a lack of transparency on the calculation of these percentages".
The work on Chandrayaan-3 is also going on; it should be launched in the next 16 months or so.
"That a software glitch was at fault was known only subsequently. However, the crashing of the lander was known on that day itself (September 6, 2019). There was no point in calling it a communication failure... [as Chairman Sivan had described it]. However, every Chairman can choose what they communicate. I believe that whatever success or failure happens should be transparently communicated. I'm not criticising Dr. Sivan though," said Mr. Somanath.
every engine instead of producing 360 N, it was producing 62 N more.