Fawad Chaudhry reacts to India moon landing failure

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry on Saturday took a jibe at the failed Indian moon mission, terming the Indian spacecraft as 'toy' and said the spacecraft must have landed in Mumbai.

Taking to Twitter, Chaudhry advised the Indian users on the social media site and others to sleep instead of waiting for an announcement from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) about the moon mission.

India lost contact with its unmanned spacecraft just before it was due to land on the Moon on Saturday, in a blow to the country’s ambitious low-cost lunar programme.

In another tweet, he said the Indian parliament should hold their prime minister Narendra Modi accountable for wasting the poor nation’s huge amount of money.

“Modi is giving speech on satellite communication as though he was actually an astronaut, not a politician,” Chaudhry said.

India had hoped to become just the fourth country after the United States, Russia and China to successfully land on the Moon.

But as Prime Minister Narendra Modi looked on, the mood in mission control in the southern city of Bangalore soon deteriorated when it became clear that everything was not going according to plan.

After several tense minutes as the expected landing time came and went, ISRO chairman Kailasavadivoo Sivan announced that communication with the lander had been lost.

"The ‘Vikram’ lander descent was (going) as planned and normal performance was observed," until the craft had descended to 2.1 kilometres (1.3 miles) above the South Pole region, Sivan said.

"Subsequently the communication from the lander to the ground station was lost. The data is being analysed," he said, surrounded by grim-faced engineers and technicians in the control room.

Modi told them after Sivan’s announcement that "what you have done (already) is not a small achievement".