Winston Churchill had aptly said that success was not final, failure was not fatal, it was the courage to continue that counted. Prime Minister, Narendra Modi the other day coined a new phrase in connection with the slight setback to Chandrayaan-2 mission, while addressing a massive gathering in Rohtak that of- ISRO culture, which meant the spirit of resilience and tenacity, the courage to fight back and finally to emerge victorious. Just missing the target by a paltry negligible though critical 5 per cent but achieving 95 per cent success meant more than it was ordinarily apparent. The Prime Minister showed his motivating traits and superb qualities as a team leader to infuse hope and new strength by leading the nation in rallying behind the scientists of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) who being a few seconds away from making history, appeared dejected over the landing module of Chandrayan losing contact with the ground control.
We cannot derive solace or any type of satisfaction by making a comparison with the fate of Beresheet spacecraft of Israel which faced a similar position nearly five months ago as just two minutes prior to the scheduled touchdown time, our Vikram lander deviated and links were broken. The dream of becoming the fourth country of the world to accomplish the enviable feat thus got slightly delayed.
Not going in much of the technicalities, the mission fell short of achieving the desired nurtured goal or the ultimate target by just 2.1 km. Apart from being the fourth country to make it to the moon, we would have achieved the singular feat of being the first country in the world to land on the moon’s unexplored south pole . This had been conceived a decade ago but serious work on it had begun just a couple of years back. The lander had been named after and as a tribute to Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, the father of the Indian Space Programme hence ‘Vikram’. That mistakes and failures are concomitants of sure success as the learning and reviewing process sets in motion to modify, reshape, reconstruct and improve to bring about the desired results, is what is infusing a new spirit and determination. As nothing succeeds like success, those moments are going to be ours and there being no doubt about it since the whole country is solidly behind the ISRO scientists as the PM put it “India is with you.”
It would be preposterous in case the emotional touching scene of the ISRO Chairman conveying about the loosing of contact with the lander to the Prime Minister who was personally present to witness the epoch making event after which the PM was seen consoling, hugging and patting on the back an emotional ISRO Chief Dr. K. Sivan who virtually broke down. He, while addressing the scientists at the ISRO Mission Control Centre and for the second time in six hours conveyed hopeful and inspiring words of “new dawn and brighter tomorrow”. Modi also was hopeful about “the best is yet to come, the nation was proud of the scientists and stood with them.” While conventionally this country has been celebrating achievements, at the same time whatever the nature and the magnitude of the emerging challenges and tests, the nation as one entity has been facing them and emerging victorious. The same is true of the unaccomplished part of the Chandrayaan-2 which our scientists are capable enough to surmount under the spirit of “Hum Hongay Kamyab”, the motivating and inspirational vision.
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