Chandrayaan-2 launched on 22 July 2019 with an orbiter, the Vikram lander and the Pragyan rover. The orbiter reached the Moon and is still working; Vikram descended normally to 2.1 km above the surface before contact was lost and it crash-landed. Four years later, Chandrayaan-3 applied every lesson — and landed.
Launch, landing attempt, and the comeback it led to: 7 moments.
7 milestones from 2019 to 2023: 6 successes, 1 failures, 0 partial successes and 0 other milestones.
Chandrayaan-2 carried 14 payloads: eight on the orbiter, three on Vikram, two on Pragyan and a passive NASA laser reflector. It was ISRO's first attempt to land on another world.
22 Jul 2019 · LVM3 · Success
After a launch attempt on 15 July was called off because of a technical snag, LVM3 lifted off a week later and placed Chandrayaan-2 in a higher Earth orbit than planned — saving propellant that later stretched the orbiter's life.
14 Aug 2019 · Success
After five Earth-bound orbit-raising burns, a trans-lunar injection burn sent the spacecraft out of Earth orbit towards the Moon.
20 Aug 2019 · Success
Chandrayaan-2 fired its engine near the Moon and was captured into lunar orbit. Four more burns lowered it towards a near-circular orbit about 100 km up.
2 Sep 2019 · Success
The Vikram lander, carrying Pragyan inside, separated from the orbiter. The two flew in the same orbit for a day before Vikram fired its own engines to drop into a 100 × 30 km orbit ahead of landing.
The final descent from 30 km to the surface was described by ISRO's chairman beforehand as "15 minutes of terror" — an automated sequence no one on the ground could steer in real time.
7 Sep 2019 · Failure
In the early hours of 7 September, Vikram began its powered descent. ISRO says performance was normal down to an altitude of about 2.1 km; then communication was lost and the lander made a hard landing.
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter later imaged the impact site and debris, first spotted in its pictures by Chennai engineer Shanmuga Subramanian.
2019 onwards · Success
The orbiter was unaffected. ISRO says precise launch and orbit management gave it about seven years of life instead of the planned one, and that 90–95% of the mission's objectives were met. Its camera has a resolution of 0.3 m, the sharpest of any lunar orbiter at the time.
Rather than copy Chandrayaan-2, ISRO designed its successor around the question "what if things go wrong?" — and used Chandrayaan-2's orbiter as its relay.
23 Aug 2023 · Success · First landing near the lunar south pole
Chandrayaan-3's lander — also named Vikram — touched down at 18:04 IST, making India the fourth country to soft-land on the Moon and the first near its south pole. Chandrayaan-2's orbiter relayed messages during the mission.
Comeback from Vikram lost at 2.1 km.
What went wrong: The Vikram lander crashed during its final descent.
Why: Engine thrust during braking was higher than expected; errors built up faster than the guidance software could correct, and the landing zone was only about 500 m across.
What fixed it: Chandrayaan-3 got a far bigger landing zone (4 km × 2.4 km), stronger legs, more fuel, extra sensors and software designed to cope with failures instead of a perfect flight.
The orbiter reached lunar orbit and is still working. The Vikram lander descended normally to about 2.1 km above the surface on 7 September 2019, then lost contact and crash-landed. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter later photographed the impact site.
Yes. ISRO says the orbiter has enough propellant for about seven years of operation, against the one year originally planned, and it relayed communications for Chandrayaan-3 in 2023.
According to ISRO's explanation of the changes made for Chandrayaan-3, thrust during the braking phase was higher than expected, errors accumulated faster than the guidance software could handle, and the planned landing zone was small. A national expert committee studied the causes and recommended the corrective actions used in Chandrayaan-3.
Chandrayaan-3 had no orbiter of its own — it used a propulsion module and relied on Chandrayaan-2's orbiter for relay. Its lander had stronger legs, more fuel, more sensors, a much larger landing zone and software designed to tolerate failures.
Related: Chandrayaan-3 Tracker, Chandrayaan-1, LVM3, ISRO Missions Timeline.