Mission Summary
Chandrayaan-2 was India’s second lunar mission and an ambitious effort to demonstrate a soft landing on the Moon while expanding scientific knowledge through an advanced lunar orbiter. Launched on July 22, 2019, by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the mission consisted of an orbiter, the Vikram lander, and the Pragyan rover. Its primary objective was to land near the Moon’s south polar region, an area believed to contain valuable information about the Moon’s history and potential water ice deposits.
The mission successfully placed the orbiter into lunar orbit, where it began conducting detailed scientific observations of the Moon. During the landing attempt on September 6, 2019, however, communication with the Vikram lander was lost during its final descent, and the lander crashed before reaching the surface. As a result, the Pragyan rover was never deployed. Despite the landing failure, the Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter exceeded its planned mission lifetime and has continued to return high-quality scientific data, including detailed images, mineral maps, and studies of the Moon’s exosphere and water distribution.
Although Chandrayaan-2 did not accomplish its goal of a soft landing, the mission was a significant scientific success because of its highly productive orbiter. The experience gained from the lander failure directly informed the design and operational improvements that led to the successful Chandrayaan-3 landing mission in 2023.
Sources and notes can be found on the Sources page.
