Our resolve has strengthened more: PM Modi tells ISRO scientists

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday hailed ISRO scientists saying that they live for the country and irrespective of setbacks the country's resolve to reach the moon has strengthened more.

'You are the ones who live for the country. You are the ones who sacrifice your own dreams and spend sleepless nights to keep India's head high," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said during his interaction with the ISRO scientists in Bengaluru.

The Prime Minister also stated that irrespective of the setbacks, our resolve to reach to the moon has strengthened more.

"Today our willpower to touch the moon has become more determined, and our resolve has strengthened", he said

Prime Minister further outlined that he could feel what the scientists were going through a few hours back.

"Friends I could feel what you were going through a few hours back, your eyes were conveying a lot. You live for India's honour, I salute you," he said.

Earlier, ISRO had announced that communication from Vikram Lander to ground stations was lost.

In a tweet, the space agency had said, "This is Mission Control Centre. #VikramLander descent was as planned and normal performance was observed up to an altitude of 2.1 km. Subsequently, communication from Lander to the ground stations was lost. Data is being analyzed."

The Vikram Lander successfully separated from Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter on September 2. The Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter continues to orbit the Moon in its existing orbit.

The Vikram lander was planned to land on the far side of the moon between 1:30 am to 2:30 am on the intervening night of Friday-Saturday. This would have been followed by rover (Pragyan) roll-out between 5:30 am to 6:30 am.

After revolving around the Earth's orbit for nearly 23 days, the craft began its journey to the moon on August 14.

The mission took off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on July 22.

India's second mission to the moon was approved by the cabinet in September 2008, just before the launch of Chandrayaan 1.