India’s ambitious lunar mission Chandrayaan 2 is scheduled to make the soft landing on the moon later tonight (Friday night) amidst ISRO chief Dr K Sivan expressing his fear of ’15 minutes of terror.’ The extraordinary development will be seen by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who’s travelling to Bengaluru to be present among the scientists at the ISRO. PM Modi arrived back from his trip to Russia only to be able to witness the spectacle in person. He will be watching the landing with children by sitting in the ISRO control room.
Talking about his anxiety ahead of the crucial landing, ISRO Chief Sivan told NDTV news channel, “This is a very. very complex process, and it is new to us, even for the people who have already done it, every time, it is a complex process, Here we are doing for the first time, so it will be fifteen minutes of terror for us.”
Dr Sivan told news agency ANI that Chandrayaan was going to land at ‘a place where no one else has gone before’ adding that he was ‘confident about the soft landing.’
Watch this video to find out more about Vikram — Chandrayaan 2’s Lander — and the different stages of its journey to the Moon’s south polar region! https://t.co/2qBLe0T710#ISRO #Moonmission #Chandrayaan2
— ISRO (@isro) September 5, 2019
Chandrayaan 2 was successfully launched on 22 July and the spacecraft has been in the space for more than seven weeks, first orbiting the earth before completing multiple orbits of the moon.
The Indian mission, if successful, will be first of its kind given its low and affordable cost since it has only cost India Rs 1,000 crore, which is significantly lower compared to how much other countries spent for a similar mission in the past.
According to a report by the BBC, if the lander does not function properly it could crash land on the Moon surface, like its predecessor Chandrayaan-1 – though this was an intentional crash landing as in 2008 India had not yet mastered how to perform a soft landing.