Interview with ISRO Chairman Somanath on Chandrayaan-3, Aditya-L1, and more Premium

S. Somanath, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), attributes the success of the Chandrayaan-3 mission to the moon to “the result of the hard work of thousands of people in ISRO”, the “rigour of the reviews”, and “corrective action taken meticulously.” In an interview with T.S. Subramanian in Bengaluru, Dr. Somanath asserted that the launch of the LVM-3 rocket on July 14 from Sriharikota and its placing the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft into its earth-bound orbit was the “most critical event” of the mission. He also spoke about the significance of the hop test conducted with the Vikram lander on the moon, said that “we are in the process of thinking about” a sample return mission from the moon, and shared his thoughts on the Aditya-L1 mission.

S. Somanath, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), attributes the success of the Chandrayaan-3 mission to the moon to “the result of the hard work of thousands of people in ISRO”, the “rigour of the reviews”, and “corrective action taken meticulously.”

In an interview with T.S. Subramanian in Bengaluru, Dr. Somanath asserted that the launch of the LVM-3 rocket on July 14 from Sriharikota and its placing the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft into its earth-bound orbit was the “most critical event” of the mission. He also spoke about the significance of the hop test conducted with the Vikram lander on the moon, said that “we are in the process of thinking about” a sample return mission from the moon, and shared his thoughts on the Aditya-L1 mission.

Question: How confident were you about the Chandrayaan-3 mission’s success? What were the contributing factors that led to the success – to the lander Vikram soft-landing on the moon and the rover Pragyan sliding down from Vikram?

Answer: There were many. The first and foremost is Chandrayaan-2’s unsuccessful attempt itself. When there is an unsuccessful attempt, it gives a lot of information. The analysis of that event gave us so [many] additional insights which were not available in the Chandrayaan-2 time frame itself. We understood the deficiencies very well. There were multiple deficiencies. It was a chain of events that caused the failure. In any rocket mission, we make sure that one event does not propagate. If one event propagates and results ultimately in failure, it means the protection mechanisms you had planned are not functioning.

There were at least five different events that culminated in the failure. There were windows left for the failure to propagate.  Once we understood them, we looked at what more could happen in similar lines. Once they were understood, we devised a set of tests that were much more rigorous and involved than what we did earlier. All these tests were done without a single item being dropped. All the tests’ results were reviewed and analysed, and corrective action taken meticulously. It took almost four years of work to be done. That is why there was such a long gap between Chandrayaan-2 and Chandrayaan-3.

You know every success comes not (repeat not) out of review or checks but it is the work of the people… So you have to challenge them. Unless you challenge them, unless they feel insecure, they will not do a great job. Complacency is dangerous. My job was to create an awareness about themselves… You have to stir them, challenge them. This is what we did.

Last time [during the Chandrayaan-2 mission], we had a problem with the software; we had problems with algorithms; we had problems with hardware; and we had problems with implementation. There was inadequacy of thrust.