Next on target is manned mission to space: Isro chief

BHUBANESWAR: Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) chairman K. Sivan on Saturday said that his next priority was successful execution of Mission Gaganyaan.

As a part of the exercise, India will send two unmanned missions — one in 2020 another in July 2021 — to space. This will be followed by a manned mission in December 2021, he added.

“We are trying to set the target of achieving this mission by the next year. For this, we are working on different options. But first of all, we have to understand what really happened to the lander. This is our first priority now,” informed the Isro chief.

Addressing the students at the 8th Convocation ceremony of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bhubaneswar, Mr Sivan said Chandrayaan-2 Mission has achieved 98 per cent of its objectives, while they are yet to establish any communication with “Lander Vikram”.

“We could not have established any communication with the lander yet. The project was developed in two parts — science and technology demonstration. We achieved total success in science objective while in technology demonstration the success percentage was almost full. That’s why the project can be termed as 98 per cent successful,” he observed.

He said that the scientists were trying to analyse the lapses, to know what exactly went wrong with the lander.

“Orbiter continues to perform scheduled science experiments to complete satisfaction. There are eight instruments in the orbiter and each instrument is doing exactly what it meant to do,” he added.

“The orbiter was initially planned for a year, but with the optimum mission planning there is every possibility that it will last for another seven and a half years benefiting us for science experiments,” said the Isro chief.