Chinese praise Chandrayaan-2 mission, ask scientists not to lose hope

Chinese netizens have praised Indian scientists involved in country's second moon mission and asked m t to lose hope and continue to explore universe undeterred by loss of communication with Chandrayaan-2 lander 'Vikram', official media here reported on Monday.

India's bold mission to soft-land on moon suffered a setback with 'Vikram' module losing communication with ground stations, just 2.1 km from lunar surface during its final descent in early hours of September 7.

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An ISRO official on Monday said Chandrayaan-2's lander Vikram is unbroken but lying tilted on surface of Moon after a hard landing very close to scheduled touchdown site. Several Chinese netizens on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo encourd Indian scientists to t lose hope.

" exploration is being chased by all human beings. matter which country has me a breakthrough, it deserves our praise, and those who have temporarily failed also deserve our encourment," state-run Global Times quoted a net user as saying.

Indian scientists have me great efforts and sacrifices for exploration, ar user said.

"We are all in gutter, but some of us are looking at stars. Any nations that bravely strive to furr explore deserve our respect," said a user on China's Quora-like Zhihu.

Global Times report quoted a Chinese expert Pang Zhihao, as saying that loss of connection was very likely due to failure of attitude control thrusters (ACT), which caused lander to lose control.

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According to Pang, Vikram lander was equipped with eight ACTs of 50-newton which provides way to remedy failure. China's Chang'e-3 lunar probe which has dispatched is fitted with 28 ACTs.

China has launched Chang'e-3, country's first craft to soft-land on moon in 2013. It later launched Chang'e-4 probe in December, 2018 which me first-ever soft landing on Von Karman Crater in South Pole-Aitken Basin on far side of moon January this year.

Pang said five 800-newton liquid-fuelled main engines of Vikram lander are also believed to be t eugh for a descent and landing. According to Pang, China's solution is a huge variable thrust engine with 1,500 to 7,500 Newton of power, he told Global Times