Responding to a question on the cost and objectives of Chandrayaan-2, Union Minister of State Jitendra Singh said Candrayaan-2 was indigenously developed and comprised an orbiter, lander and a rover. “It was successfully launched on-board indigenous GSLV MK III-M1 Mission on July 22.”

Chandrayaan-2 was India’s second Moon mission.

Explaining Chandrayaan-2’s journey after its launch, Singh said after accomplishing four earth-bound maneuvers and Trans Lunar Injection, the spacecraft was successfully inserted into Moon’s orbit on August 20.

“A series of Moon-bound maneuvers were then carried out to achieve a Lunar orbit of 119×127 km. The Lander Vikram was separated, as planned, from the Orbiter on September 2. After two successful de-orbiting maneuvers, powered descent of the Lander was initiated on September 7 to achieve soft landing on the Moon surface,” he said in the reply.

Speaking about the crucial night of September 7 when Vikram was to soft-land on Moon, Jitendra Singh said, “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 metres of the designated landing site.”

However, despite the hard landing, most components of technology demonstration, including the launch, orbital critical maneuvers, lander separation, de-boost and rough braking phase were successfully accomplished, the government told Parliament in its reply.

“With regards to the scientific objectives, all eight state-of-the-art scientific instruments of the Orbiter are performing as per the design and providing valuable scientific data,” the reply said.

The government also informed Parliament that due to precise launch and orbital maneuvers, the mission life of the Orbiter has increased to seven years. “The data received from the Orbiter is being provided continuously to the scientific community. The same was recently reviewed in an all India user meet organised at New Delhi,” the reply said.