Chandriyaan-2

“15 minute of terror”

 Introduction
On the 22nd of July 2019, Indian space research organization (ISRO) has launched its ambitious
project to land an unmanned mission on the moon. This mission would be the first discovery of
the South Pole of the moon. Before that only North Pole has been explored. This mission success
would have bring India the fourth country after US, Russia and China to land on the moon.
The mission include a lunar orbiter to orbit around the surface of moon. Secondly, it consist of a
lander known as Vikram which was expected to land on moon on 6th of September. It had different
kind of equipment as a support of mission’s third major component Rover. Rover known as
Pragyan is a six wheel object which is artificially intelligent vehicle, weighting approximately 27
kg and will conduct mission on surface activities.
Everything went according to plan, when launcher launched the space craft caring orbiter, lander
and rover. Mission was going smoothly. Orbiter and lander got separated as per plan 100 km above
Moon’s surface. But the project went in jeopardy when ISRO lost contact with its lander and the
next moment it crashed on the moon. It was supposed to be a soft landing. At the 2.1 km above
the Surface of Moon the communication was lost to the lander
This was India’s most a lunar exploratory mission. But it was not the only mission of its kind
conducted by ISRO. It was the second attempted by the Indian space agency to explore moon.
Previously they led a successful mission chandraiyaan-1 to the moon Back in October 2008. This
mission only took orbiter to moons orbit to conduct research. Which was 2 year mission but was
winded up to 10 months and 6 days due to loss of Communication in May 2009.
Budget
Indian government and Space Agency ISRO has lost a lot of valuable money. It is stated that the
total budget of this project is 135 million dollars. Around 84 million were devoted to work
spacecraft including rover. Which is permanently lost due to the failure to deploy lander on Moon.
Scope
The orbiter was too circled around the moon for one complete year. It will be observing moon
form the distance of 100 km approximately. Rover- lander were to be on moon for 14 earth days.
Orbiter is intended to Gathered data related to the surface composition of moon and presence of
water molecules on moon. Mapping of moon and observing any potential mineral rich areas on
moon.
Purpose on the mission was to collect data related to primordial (exiting from the begging of time)
water reserves and composition of the surface. Topography, gasses around the moon, minerals
found on the moon and element abundance of moon. Apart from that there were also plenty of
others agendas for the mission. Which includes the seismic activates on the moon, Thermal
conductivity and making space superiority statement.
Figure 1 Rover: Pragyaan

Figure 2 Orbiter
 Project Failures
Technical Snag
A Technical snag was noticed on 15th of July at its previous launching date which was seven days
ahead of the actual launch day. Initially the mission was dated for July 15th everything was in place
and the countdown were begun before the lancing date.
But a technical snag interrupted the launch just 50 minutes before the historical moon launch.
ISRO being careful delayed the mission Teams were allocated to the resolve the issue. Snag was
believed to be pressurization of Rocket System due to fully load of fuel.
Technological Failure
Over ambitious to work on the technology which was beyond the expertise of the ISRO, ISRO
developed their own instrument. ISRO signed a deal back in 2008 with Russian Federal Space
Agency (ROSCOSMOS) for the construction of Lander. This project was initially a joint mission
by Russian space agency and ISRO. But, Russian agency declared that they could no further build
lander for the project in 2015.
For the projects, technology is one of the biggest reason of failure. Technology needs to be
accurate. ISRO did not have the technology or knowledge capacity to execute the project of
manufacturing a Lander. So they decide to outsource it to a space agency. For that purpose they
made a contract with Russian Space agency. But Russian Agency was not able to complete project
on time.
There were two major reasons quoted by Russian agency. First their own lander technology failed
and second they did not have the funds to work on the idea further. In that case, ISRO should have
contacted other Space Agencies such NASA. It was quite unrealistic to think of developing a
technology in short period of time. A technology they were not confident in the first place and that
was the reason why signed MOU with Russian space agency.
Software Glitch
Software glitch caused destruction of the space craft by running only one of the five engines which
were required to be running for landing. According to ISRO’s internal report the guidance software
designed for soft land went wrong. This glitch was unexpected as software was running smoothly
during the trail periods.
Space craft are usually landed on a surface by Reduction of its velocity in space. This is done
through number of descends. Number of descend planned for this landing were Five. A consistent
velocity needs to be kept to descend i.e. is 2 meter per second. During the 3rd phase of Descent the
velocity of descend was more than designed value for that phase. Which cause acceleration into
the craft and it crash landed.
Failure of Autonomy
ISRO was not able to do anything or control anything from the ground below. It was a complete
autonomous landing. In this whole maneuvers ISRO was a silent observer. This was the first
experience of its kind. Collision could have been prevented by keeping control to self as well. The
system was not able to take corrective action on its own.
The system was not trained to identify potential threat and take precautionary measures. Designs
to see unforeseen time and adjust according to it. Keeping blind trust on artificial intelligence has
led this mission toward failure.
Gravity and atmosphere
Speed of the Lander needed to be 2 meter per second when it is close to moon surface. But Speed
of the craft was way more than that. According to Previous Employee of ISRO, the organization
failed to realize the fact that the gravity of the moon can cause to accelerate the speed of space
craft.
Secondly, it is also assumed by some space enthusiast, high speed landing cause rise in the dust
field. Which shake the craft to a point were moons gravitational pull comes into effect.
Braking
According to ISRO, after the rough braking Lander experience difficulty in soft braking. In the
upper atmosphere descend are usually done through Rough braking to reduce the speed. While for
landing on surface braking should be soft. It’s thought that the landers braking thrusters broke
down and sudden brake cause its hard collision.
Other reasons to Failure
 Communication loss was also one of the key contributor to the crash of Lander. The
guidance system deployed on Vikram Lander lost contact with the orbiter. Which cause
the ground station of ISRO lost contact with Lander. As. Communication was going
through Orbiter.
 Leak in the nipple joint of helium gas bottle happened ahead of the launch date. Which has
latter resolved.
Project Management
Thou this project is still considered a remarkable achievement for India and its ambition for space
supremacy. But it has a lot of failure, when you look it through the project management lens. One
of the two major scope of the project (soft landing a rover with the help of a lander) will not be
achieved. Outcome of project is not meet completely.
All in all, technical people and Project Management professionals must go hand in hands to execute
projects of such large scale of impact value. Technical people could be very good at their work but
project management is an ever growing science.
Failure to cope with risk management.
Indian Space Research Organization did not conducted a thorough Risk analysis for this project.
It seemed that ISRO already knew about the fate of their mission. But they failed to act to do
something about it. In January 2019, a senior level official of ISRO K Sivan at a Seminar stated
that landing on the moon is extremely difficult part of this project. According to him, around 50
percent of the projects failed in the landing phase.
If the ISRO had a strategy to mitigate or avoid that risk the Fate of the project could have been
different. Risk responses on such large scale would have been beneficial. Contingency plan could
have been kept by reducing the fuel of orbiter and adding a landing bag to lander. Previously Luna
9 mission of Russia used such technology to safely land on the moon.
Quality- Cost Tradeoff
It is also observed from the space mission conducted by different space agencies that the success
of project is somewhat dependent on the cost of project. Usually Space programs are immensely
cost prone. According to Space Experts, there is a well explained reason for this fact that is Quality
parameters of different work of project. Because there are a lot of factors in play for a space
program such as Research, design quality of coding, Quality of Product and Process used to
develop that project. These factor hike up cost of the project.
Lower cost projects traditionally have attracted more failure. ISRO’s project costs between 100
million to 150 million dollars. Which is 10 times cheaper than NASA’s Project. Low cost mission
of the mission eventually contributed towards the high risk of project failure. ISRO was not able
to develop Quality Lander for the Mission.
Lesson Learned
Lesson learned from the similar projects have not been considered. In the same year, few months
back an Israel space agency project “Beresheet” similar to scope on Chnadriyaan-2 faced same
fate. But no lesson were learned from the failure of that project
Moreover, Two Apollo series moon lander missions and Few Soviet Lunar missions also met the
similar fate of destruction.
 China lead a successful mission this year to Moon. This mission is still operational and its rover
is discovering far side of the moon.
A lot of valuable lesson could be put out from the successful mission of china and failed mission
on Israel. But, Push the idea of going in the moon any way. Indian Government and Israeli
government have been allies. So the possibility of studying that project could have been created.
Scope Change
When Roscosmos sacked deal with ISRO for moon lander. ISRO made lander part of their scope
and made an over ambitious deadline. They decided to manufacture Lander in house to save their
self from humiliation and to fast track mission. That’s where thing went wrong for the mission. As
this rover was neither the expertise of ISRO. Nor there were adequate time available to execute
that project. With the limited technology available they try to pursue this idea. Which eventually
ended up in to failure of the mission. In the hurry, they have to push project. New design for lander
were made. There was no adequate time to fact check the quality project.
Schedule delays
Since timing is one of the major constrain when it comes to project Management. Projects are
considered failed when it doesn’t meet its deadlines properly. In the case of Chandriyaan-2 it have
missed several deadline. Mission was approved in September 2008. Space Craft design was
completed Aug 2009.
Targeted launch date for the mission was in December 2013. But due incompletion Lander the
project, ISRO has to postpone the project. The deadline was extended to December 2015. Then
ROSCOSMOS pulled out of the project. Which also extended the deadline and the new deadline
was given in March 2018. ISRO could not manufactured their own lander by that time then
deadline was extended to February 2019. But due to damage of leg lander damage the deadline
was not meet.
14th July 2019 date was decided for the launch but then again the idea was postponed when an un
expected problem arise during the last hour of launch countdown. Then finally project was
launched on 22nd July 2019.