A terribly tense and ultimately heartbreaking night for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Their Chandrayaan-2 mission attempted to soft-land the Vikram lander near the Moon's unexplored south pole, a region rich in water ice.



Everything looked perfect until the final moments of descent when telemetry abruptly stopped just two kilometres above the surface. While the loss of the lander is a bitter pill to swallow, it is worth remembering that the mission's orbital component is safely circling the Moon, fully operational, and ready to conduct years of vital, high-resolution mapping. Landing on another world remains brutally difficult.