India to Attempt Moon Landing at the Lunar South Pole Today. How to Watch Live

They gave it a great shot.Sounds like the lander got within 100 meters of the surface of the moon before contact lost. Better than I will ever be able to say, lol.

I am proud as a human being that they tried.

go humans!!

originally posted by: Silcone Synapse
Oh dear..
Looks like they stopped recievimg signals from the lander as it got to 100meters above the lunar surface.
They are trying to analyse the data now.
Not looking good

What could happen 100 meters ABOVE the surface? Hopefully the orbiter had its camera(s) zoomed in on the lander when communications was lost.

Getting within 100m is a strange place to lose contact. If the thing crashed then is it reasonable to expect data to 0m? Just going to have to wait to see what they find, maybe someone one did not want those experiments to take place? Sabotage, subversion, secret space programs?

originally posted by: kwakakev
Getting within 100m is a strange place to lose contact. If the thing crashed then is it reasonable to expect data to 0m? Just going to have to wait to see what they find, maybe someone one did not want those experiments to take place? Sabotage, subversion, secret space programs?

Or maybe it's not as easy to get to the Moon and land on it as one might think.

Video of coverage of the landing attempt today.



I don't think they lost it during descent. I bet they lost contact when it hit the surface, their numbers were just off some.

originally posted by: kwakakev
Getting within 100m is a strange place to lose contact. If the thing crashed then is it reasonable to expect data to 0m? Just going to have to wait to see what they find, maybe someone one did not want those experiments to take place? Sabotage, subversion, secret space programs?

Maybe the chute ripped off or engines failed on the way down. It could of burnt up. It usually comes down to some stupid little thing. Like an upside down sensor or using the wrong numbers. Hopefully we will learn more after they look at the data.

Maybe they just don't want the public watching

Do we really need another 7-11 on the moon?...

a reply to: LookingAtMars

There's no atmosphere to create the friction to burn it up or to make parachutes any use!

originally posted by: 00018GE
Do we really need another 7-11 on the moon?...

Do we really need another lazy racist stereotype?

originally posted by: carewemust

originally posted by: Silcone Synapse
Oh dear..
Looks like they stopped recievimg signals from the lander as it got to 100meters above the lunar surface.
They are trying to analyse the data now.
Not looking good

What could happen 100 meters ABOVE the surface? Hopefully the orbiter had its camera(s) zoomed in on the lander when communications was lost.

Unlikely, the orbiter was orbiting and us 60+ miles above the surface. The terrain camera they have may be good enough to see small objects (Chandrayaan-1 found evidence of Apollo), but even if they had a live broadcast camera it is unlikely to have been powerful enough to see the lander from that distance.

The reports I've seen say that the last normal comms were lost 2km above the surface, and the last height given was 0.33 km. It would be nice to think its internal systems got it to land unaided and that it's just a data glitch, but it's not likely.

a reply to: OneBigMonkeyToo

Thank-you for supplying those helpful details. Maybe India tried to take a big step, when it hadn't taken enough baby steps over the years? I think before the U.S. landed on the Moon, we had a lot of space flight experience under our belts.

originally posted by: OneBigMonkeyToo
a reply to: LookingAtMars

There's no atmosphere to create the friction to burn it up or to make parachutes any use!

Thanks for pointing that out.

My brain is stuck on Mars.

a reply to: OneBigMonkeyToo

Well, on a more positive note, I would doubt they were real-time controlling the lander from Earth during the landing sequence. The communication lag, though small, would be enough to create some major issues. So, I'm thinking the lander probably did have a landing sequence programmed into it.

On the other hand...if it's anything like our IT helpdesk (outsourced to India) it just hurtled itself into the surface at 14,000mph and is now just a bunch of twisted aluminum and smoldering circuit boards.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I think you are correct. Looks like it compared what it was seeing on landing with a map programmed into the lander and was to make corrections on it's own, to land in a safe place.

Just shows how extremely hard it is to even get a probe to the moon, even with todays technology. Makes you wonder how the Americans managed it with 60s technology doesn't it? Not only did they send men to the moon 6 times without incident, they also brought them back home! Did 60s America lose some amazing tech or something?

The more time that passes, the more unbelievable the moon landings become.

a reply to: Xabi87

Well, I can explain part of the answer of how they did it...

Back then people actually used pencils and slide rules. They knew math and didn't rely on calculators and computers for everything. They had to understand the fundamentals of doing everything manually. Today few understand these fundamentals anymore without the aid of a computer or some other technological device. And, when you don't understand the principles behind the math or science, and just rely on whatever a computer tells you, bad things happen...or some things don't happen at all.

Case in point, back in the late 90's Japan launched a lander mission to Mars. The lander slammed into the surface of Mars because someone updated the software and used metric units for velocities when the rest of the system was programmed with non-metric values. So the system was conducting maneuvers based on expected velocity values in feet per second when they were really in meters per second. When the craft appeared to have 'landed' earlier than expected engineers were left scratching their heads. Then they realized what had happened.

originally posted by: Xabi87
The more time that passes, the more unbelievable the moon landings become.

Agreed. You see old footage of these guys riding those repurposed WW2 rockets and then they build a wild little contraption and get a bigger rocket and shoot it at the Moon. They have practically no computer power and they have to navigate by sextant. Each step and the whole thing could blow up, as several did later. They were foolhardy and incalculably lucky, and knowing what we know now the whole endeavor seems insane.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Right, the good old times of pencils and slide rules:

Pioneer 0 - 3 failed
Pioneer A - D failed
Ranger 1 - 6 failed (with 4 and 6 being partial failures)

Luna E1 3 failures
Luna E3 2 failures
Luna E6 5 failures
etc

LOL

ISRO say they have found the location of the lander.

I"We've found the location of #VikramLander on lunar surface & Orbiter has clicked a thermal image of Lander. But there is no communication yet. We are trying to have contact. It will be communicated soon" : K Sivan, ISRO Chief
twitter.com...

a reply to: Blue Shift Note for Mercury to Apollo, we spent an absolutely enormous amount of money. No limit, it was a national priority. The Space Race was the Cold War! US vs Russia! Cue Bob Dylan: 'I ask you how things could much worse, if the Russians happen to get there first' .

The failed Mars mission, the Mars Climate Orbiter, due to metric-English error, was an American probe, not Indian. India's space program is very impressive for results per effort, very well done on their Mars mission. The failure rate at Mars is very high.