National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on Saturday hailed ISRO's Chandrayaan 2 mission. The United States space agency said that ISRO inspired them. NASA also said that it looked forward to exploring space together with ISRO. ISRO on Saturday accomplished close 100% of the mission by placing its orbiter in moon's orbit and attempting to soft land Vikram module on the lunar surface.

NASA's tweet hailing ISRO

ISRO chairman K Sivan: Chanrayaan 2's Orbiter data to help global community

"This will give further insight into the science of the moon, especially the lunar region. We have our orbit going in the polar orbit. We can understand about water and ice even 10 meters below the moon surface. The orbiter high-resolution camera imaging will create images with 32 cm higher resolution which no other country has right now, the image will give accurate information about the mapping of the lunar surface, scientists would be very curious to know about this data."  

READ | Chandrayaan 2 new update out: Orbiter's lifespan 7 years, not 1

'ISRO's overall mission successful': Former NASA astronaut 

An astronaut narrator and space analyst, former NASA astronaut Jerry Linenger said overall the mission has been very successful. In fact, the orbiter will continue to downlink very valuable information for the next year. And by all indications, all systems are good on the orbiter, he said. The former NASA astronaut had participated in the National Geographic Channel for the live telecast of ISRO's Chandrayaan 2 landing.

READ | Chandrayaan 2 to help India's future missions: ex-NASA astronaut

Chandrayaan 2 close 100% success

The powered descent of the Lander to soft-landing had four phases- rough braking, position, fine braking, and terminal phase. The first three phases were executed properly. The fourth phase was not executed properly hence we lost the connection with the Lander. Regarding the technology demonstration part - we could go from 30 km to 2 km of the moon. Hence I would say that the technology demonstration was 90-95% was done. So, in total, Chandrayaan 2 mission is very close to 100% success," he added.

READ | Chandrayaan 2: 'Orbiter data will help global community': ISRO chief

What happened during Vikram's soft-landing?

Earlier on Saturday morning at 1:50 AM when Vikram Lander was scheduled to land, ISRO's Deep Space Antenna lost communication with Chandrayaan-2's lander- Vikram as it descended towards the lunar surface. The lander had descended from 30 km to 2km smoothly. During the final smooth braking stage, it had lost communication with Mission Control. Vikram Lander was aimed at soft-landing on the moon, making India the fourth country to do so.

READ | Chandrayaan 2: 'Mission is not a failure, not a setback': ISRO chief