Nation is with ISRO scientists: CM
NEW DELHI/KOLKATA: Leaders across political parties on Saturday hailed the dedication and passion of ISRO scientists, urging them not to be disheartened after Chandrayaan-2's Vikram lander lost contact with ground stations minutes before its planned touchdown on the lunar surface.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday said the ISRO scientists worked hard for Chandrayaan-2 mission and the nation is with them.
"We are proud of our scientists. The @isro team worked hard for #Chandrayaan2. A befitting tribute to our founding fathers who envisioned India's place in the league of scientifically advanced nations far ahead of their times," she tweeted.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked ISRO scientists not to get disheartened by the hurdles in the moon mission Chandrayaan-2 and asserted that there would be a "new dawn and better tomorrow".
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi lauded the ISRO scientists for their "incredible work" on the Chandrayaan 2. He said the scientists had laid the foundation for more path-breaking and ambitious space missions in future.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal urged scientists not to lose heart.
"We are proud of our scientists. They have created history.No need to lose heart. Our scientists have done a great job. Jai Hind!"
CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury expressed confidence that the next steps will "more satisfying".
The New York Times, Washington Post, BBC and The Guardian, among many other leading foreign media outlets, all carried stories on Chandrayaan-2, India's landmark moon mission.
American magazine Wired said the Chandrayaan-2 programme was India's "most ambitious" space mission yet.
The New York Times lauded India's "engineering prowess and decades of space development".
British newspaper The Guardian, in its article titled "India's moon landing suffers last-minute communications loss", quoted Mathieu Weiss, a representative in India for France's space agency CNES, as saying: "India is going where probably the future settlements of humans will be in 20 years, in 50 years, 100 years". The Washington Post in its headline "India's first attempt to land on the moon appears to have failed" said the mission had been a source of "immense national pride".
India's bold bid to become only the fourth country to achieve a soft landing on the Moon suffered a setback in the wee hours of Saturday when the contact with Chandrayaan-2's landing module was abruptly lost just 2.1 km above the lunar surface and seconds away.
India also would have been the only country to land on the Moon's unexplored south pole as part of the Rs 978 crore Chandrayaan-2 mission conceived a decade ago. WITH AGENCY INPUTS
