What Wrong With Vikram

The mishap took place during a programmed changeover phase of the lander’s descent on the moon—a manoeuvre hitherto untested by isro and fraught with countless possible variations.

- Raj Chengappa 

There was plenty riding on Vikram, India’s squat moon lander, before its precision landing on the lunar surface on September 7 went mysteriously awry. There was Pragyan, the compact rover with Ashoka emblems embossed on its wheels, to leave a permanent footprint of India’s presence on the moon. If the lander, which was named after the father of the country’s space programme, Vikram Sarabhai, had succeeded, it would have been a fitting finale to the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). It would also have signalled to the world that India had come of age in space exploration and made the country only the fourth nation to achieve a soft landing on the moon after the US, the erstwhile USSR and China. Coincidentally, it would also have marked 100 days of the Narendra Modi-led government’s second term in office.

More than anyone else, ISRO chairman Kailasavadivoo Sivan was acutely aware of the risks involved in loading this particular space event with national aspirations. “In rocket science,” he told india today, “there are always unknown unknowns” (