Chandrayaan-2 first step towards success: Delhi residents on ISRO's achievement

The whole country shared the message of hope to the ISRO scientists for their hard work and utmost attempt, even though the ground station has lost contact with the Vikram Lander. Countrymen consider the mission of Chandrayaan-2 itself is a successful attempt because the orbiter is still orbiting the moon.

New Delhi: The whole country is praising the achievements of scientists of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for the Chandrayaan-2 mission even though the ground station has lost contact with Vikram Lander, kilometers within the range of soft-landing.

During the conversation with visitors near the India Gate on Saturday, their views were supportive of the efforts of the ISRO team for a 95% successful moon mission.

Piyush, a visitor said that it could be wrong to consider the contact lose as the failure of the mission as the orbiter is still orbiting the moon.

The contact of Vikram Lander has lost for a while from the ground station which may reconnect anytime, he added.

"We all feel proud of our scientists and there is no reason for them to feel disheartened. In any big attempt, this type of complexities has come any time. They should take it as a challenge", said Resham, another visitor to the India Gate.

There were cheers and clapping both at the mission control centre and the area where media was stationed, as Vikram's descent was on as planned at that time. But, disappointment was palpable on the faces of the ISRO scientists within minutes as they stopped getting any communication from the lander.

Soon, ISRO chief K Sivan approached his colleagues and started intense discussions, along with his predecessor A S Kiran Kumar. Sivan then went up to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was seated in the gallery and communicated to him about what had happened.

Praising the efforts, PM on the earlier hours of Saturday told the ISRO members to "be courageous."

"Entire nation was awake in solidarity with our scientists. Our determination to touch moon has become even stronger, we came very close but we need to cover more grounds. Countless people have got access to a better life due to the hard work of our space scientists. The best is yet to come in our space program, India is with you," PM Modi had said.

In the early hours of Saturday, communication from 'Vikram' lander to ground stations was lost during its powered descent to the Lunar surface, and ISRO said data is being analysed.