India and Israel’s moon landings failed: Why final descent is so hard
India’s Vikram moon lander, part of its Chandrayaan-2 mission, crashed into the lunar surface last week. It was the country’s first attempt at a soft landing on the moon.
The landing of Israeli nonprofit SpaceIL’s Beresheet lander also failed in April.
Descent and landing
are difficult stages of a mission to the moon or any other planetary body — especially the final stages, which India’s space-program director referred to as “15 minutes of terror.”
That’s because landers
must successfully carry out a series of complex commands with little room for failure, while contending with the moon’s wonky gravity, uneven terrain, and pesky dust.
The crash came just five months after an Israeli nonprofit’s lander, called Beresheet, crashed into the moon’s surface. In both cases, the fatal errors occurred the final stages of descent.
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