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Communications Moon

India Loses Communication With Lunar Lander Shortly Before Scheduled Landing On the Moon (theverge.com) 95

Posted by BeauHD from the tense-mystery dept.
India's first soft landing on the Moon today appears to have ended in failure after the country's robotic Vikram lander seemingly crashed into the lunar surface during its powered descent to the ground. The Verge reports: India would have become the fourth country to land a spacecraft intact on the Moon. But for now, only the United States, Russia, and China hold that title. The Vikram lander was a critical part of India's Chandrayaan-2 mission -- a project aimed at learning more about the unexplored and highly intriguing south pole of the Moon. Numerous lunar spacecraft have gathered enough evidence about this region to suggest that significant amounts of water ice might be hiding on the south pole, likely in frigid craters that are in permanent shadow. India's goal with Chandrayaan-2 was to land vehicles in this region to get a better understanding of the area's composition and learn just how much water ice might be lurking there.

Vikram was carrying a rover called Pragyan, and together the two vehicles were meant to explore the south pole region in up-close detail using a series of instruments, including a seismometer to measure lunar quakes and X-rays to help figure out the composition of the dirt (and potential water ice). But just a few minutes before Vikram was scheduled to touch down on the Moon, data of the lander from inside India's mission control center showed the vehicle to be slightly off course. When Vikram was about 1.3 miles (2.1 kilometers) above the surface, India lost communication with the lander. India has yet to give official confirmation on whether or not the lander did, indeed, crash.
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India Loses Communication With Lunar Lander Shortly Before Scheduled Landing On the Moon More

India Loses Communication With Lunar Lander Shortly Before Scheduled Landing On the Moon

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  • Damn (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Friday September 06, 2019 @06:20PM (#59167276)

    All failures like this hurt, and this would have been a great mission to understand some new things about the moon... I hope they have something waiting in the wings to try again.

    • There might be spare flight parts or engineering models that could be integrated into another spacecraft. Mars 2020 is using some spares from Curiosity, and the Smithsonian has an entire spare flight-ready Pioneer probe (minus the RTGs) hanging on display.

    • Re:Damn (Score:4, Funny)

      by PolygamousRanchKid ( 1290638 ) on Friday September 06, 2019 @06:39PM (#59167346)

      All failures like this hurt, and this would have been a great mission to understand some new things about the moon

      Well, we just did now. Just like when the Iranians shot down one of our drones . . . we learned that the Iranians had better air defenses than we previously thought.

      Now with an Israeli and an Indian drone lander being shot down . . . we know the Moon folks have better defense systems than our intelligence agencies were aware about.

      And those Naked Moon Folks [wikipedia.org] seemed like they would have been a lot of fun as the enemy to fraternize with.

      • The Loonies might be getting better at shooting down probes but they'll never replace K'breel and the Council of Elders in my heart.

      • Those probes weren't shot down... the engineers involved just hadn't come to the realization that relying on GPS for a moon landing wasn't the smartest idea.

        • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

          by Mal-2 ( 675116 )

          Have they tried turning it off and back on again?

          • Have they tried turning it off and back on again?

            Apparently that may have been what led to the crash...

            it was just instinct really. They had a blip come up on one of the screens and the support guy immediately rebooted

        • I heard the Chinese lander had an anti aircraft turret build in.

          Those damned engineers getting more clever and resourceful by the minute.

    • Crash not confirmed (Score:3, Informative)

      by ghoul ( 157158 )

      The lander is communicating with the orbiter. Just not being able to beam direct to Earth stations. That means it did not crash land but may have got damage on its high gain antennae. The issue is that the bandwidth through the orbiter is not enough to remote control the rover.

      If Indian scientists can figure out some way of boosting the badwidth through the orbiter the mission may still be salvaged.

      • Re:Crash not confirmed (Score:4, Informative)

        by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Saturday September 07, 2019 @07:53AM (#59168502)
        Well, the problem with that is the orbiter orbits the moon. Meaning it's only able to communicate with the lander part of the time. According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] its orbit is just 100 km above the lunar surface in a circular orbit. Since the moon has a radius of 1737 km, that means [wolfram.com]:
        • R = h + r, where R = 1837 km, h = 100 km
        • r = R - h
        • r = R cos (theta/2)
        • r/R = cos(theta/2)
        • arccos(r/R) = theta/2
        • theta = 2*arccos( r/R )
        • theta = 2*arccos( (R-h) / R )
        • theta = 38 degrees

        So the orbiter will only be able to communicate with the lander 38/360 = 10.6% of the time. The rest of the time, the orbiter will be below the horizon from the lander's perspective.

        Orbital velocity is v = sqrt (GM/r). And the circumference of the orbit is 2pi*r. So the period T = 2pi*r / sqrt(GM/r). Plugging in r = 1837 km, M = 7.35*10^22 kg, I get T = 1.96 hours.

        So they're going to be able to communicate with the lander for only 12.4 minutes every 2 hours.

      • Where are you getting that information from? That's not what the telemetry showed, and none of the news sources are saying the lander didn't crash. The lander was spinning out of control and the descent trajectory was deviating significantly off nominal when communications ceased.

  • This mission was India's best hope to find more water to combat the water drought crisis in large cities. It looks like it didn't work.

  • It's probably fine (Score:3)

    by Ryzilynt ( 3492885 ) on Friday September 06, 2019 @06:25PM (#59167298)

    I'm sure it's decent was being executed by an on board computer. No need for an Earth link.

  • Components were made where? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by RogueWarrior65 ( 678876 ) on Friday September 06, 2019 @06:30PM (#59167316)

    Probably shouldn't have used Huawei components, huh?

  • not to steal Tesla's collision avoidance software.

  • That's Horrible (Score:5)

    by GeekBoy ( 10877 ) on Friday September 06, 2019 @06:38PM (#59167340)

    Horrible for India, I feel for them, but every failure they will learn from as long as they try again.

    This is horrible for the world too, and the lost opportunity for greater scientific exploration of the moon.

    Don't give up!

    • Re:That's Horrible (Score:5, Informative)

      by hey! ( 33014 ) on Friday September 06, 2019 @06:47PM (#59167372) Homepage Journal

      Space exploration is not a game for people who can't tolerate failure. Korolev was fortunate that the Soviets had a space rivalry with the US; things could have gone badly had his superiors not needed him.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jwhyche ( 6192 )

      Well they got it to the moon. That has to count for something. 1 out of 2 you know.

      I've been recycling that joke since the Mars Climate Orbiter and Schiaparelli.

      • I remember the disappointing splat that one left on Mars!

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by ClickOnThis ( 137803 )

        I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.

        I can accept that somehow you earned a +3 starting-score on all of your posts. But do you have to rub it in with a sig like that? A little humility would be more becoming.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by jwhyche ( 6192 )

          I probably should change that. It was handy when AC where running wild but since those days seem to be over it should be safe to crank it down a notch.

      • Getting a small payload (IE a probe or lander of some kind) to the moon is not as difficult as you'd think. Even a Falcon 9 has enough lift to deliver those kinds of payloads to the moon. Earlier this year a Falcon 9 launched a couple terrestrial satellites *and* the Isreali Beresheet lunar lander in a single launch.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by rinka ( 870438 )
      Here's the latest on the landing. @ISRO has located the lander and are attempting to communicate with it. Let's see how that goes. There's some (unconfirmed) reports that there's some communication but I think it is better to wait for a confirmed report. Let's see, fingers crossed. In the meantime, the Orbiter has a large number of tasks to do. It did its job of getting there and launching the lander well, well enough that the spare fuel etc., extends its life from 1 year to 7 years. More details on

  • Lithobraking successful (Score:3)

    by MichaelSmith ( 789609 ) on Friday September 06, 2019 @06:39PM (#59167344) Homepage Journal

    NASA and the Soviets were soft landing probes on the moon in the 1960s. And they didn't have modern computers or communications.

    • Re:Lithobraking successful (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nevermindme ( 912672 ) on Friday September 06, 2019 @07:51PM (#59167518)
      No they developed modern computing, space hardware and communications to get to the moon, and to prove very publicly they can put a warhead on any target in the world. Nodding at each other MAD was the way of the world. Development past 1968 has slowed because delivering communications satellites to orbit only requires 1968 technology. More space technology was developed between 1959 and 1968 than 1968 to today. The offshoots of that technology need have changed the world faster than could have ever been expected or funded otherwise. Now technology billionaires are putting a few cents back into space technology we are ready for another era of great development with cheaper, faster, farther as the drivers.

    • From what I understand computers and communications are the two things that are the least likely to fail on modern landers/satellites. The issues usually come down to either navigation/INU (inertial navigation unit) or propulsion systems. INU failures have brought down A LOT of spacecraft/rockets (SpaceIL just recently). And for some reason we still have a lot of problems operating valves for spacecraft engines and manufacturing reaction wheels that can last (see virtually every space telescope, Hayabusa

  • I blame the tardigrades (Score:3)

    by Ranger ( 1783 ) on Friday September 06, 2019 @06:41PM (#59167354) Homepage
    Clearly the tardigrades (the water bears) that the Israeli lander that crashed and spilled on the Moon are hard at work preventing other probes from landing to see what they are up to. Pretty soon they'll start taking out any orbiters or other working landers or rovers on the Moon.
  • Maybe the Galactic Ghoul [wikipedia.org] has given up on Mars and decided to move to the Moon.

  • ... turning it off and then on again?

  • ... where suddenly music starts playing and people come from all directions and start singing and dancing?

  • Windows update (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sjames ( 1099 ) on Friday September 06, 2019 @08:41PM (#59167616) Homepage Journal

    Looks like the Windows update picked a hell of a time to reboot!

  • Let me understand... (Score:5, Funny)

    by registrations_suck ( 1075251 ) on Friday September 06, 2019 @08:46PM (#59167622)

    You have lost communication with your lunar lander shortly before scheduled landing on the moon, is that correct?

    I am very sorry you are experiencing this problem. Let me assure you that I will do the needful to ensure this problem is corrected and I am in a full position to provide you with five star service today.

    I need you to please verify your name and the number you are calling from today so that I can pull up your lunar lander account.

  • The whole project was just an accent waiting to happen...

  • I hope they're planning another mission to go collect all the crap they just left there.

  • parachute failure (Score:3, Funny)

    by wcanevari ( 701163 ) on Friday September 06, 2019 @11:05PM (#59167964)
    The parachute did not deploy :>D
  • It's their Gods punishing them for what they're doing elsewhere.
  • This was a direct aggression so they can invoke self defense. Don't mess with aliens

  • Probably ran into a mountain. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Brett Buck ( 811747 ) on Saturday September 07, 2019 @01:59AM (#59168186)

    With no air, the best descent method is to come screaming in at orbital speed, and at a very low, almost grazing, altitude. The geoid, er, selenoid of the moon is not terribly well known, even now, and maneuvering is notoriously tricky because of the very "lumpy" gravity. Several previous missions have "gone silent" at low altitudes, generally because they hit a mountain or hill. That got several of the Russian landers, including the one they launched during the Apollo 11 mission. Apollo generally avoided the problem by targeting a perigee, er, periselene of 50,000 feet. That was relatively safe, but required a long terminal descent, which was inefficient.

        OF course, it could be a myriad of other issues, but this is a known mission risk.

  • Apparently all we need to get the lander fixed is to send them some Google Play gift cards.
  • "John" is delighted you called and would be happy to try and resolve your current problem.

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