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There's no looking back for ISRO. The Indian space agency has its eyes on the next moon mission despite hard landing of Chandrayaan-2. Things didn't go as planned, but ISRO's plans for a moon mission in future have already begun.
On being asked about similar plans after Chandrayaan-2 lander's hard landing, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman K Sivan said: "We are working out a detailed future plan."
He said the orbiter of Chandrayaan-2 is doing "very well" and all the payload operations have commenced.
"A national level committee has been formed to find out what went wrong with (Vikram) lander. Once the committee submits its report, we will work on what to do in future," he said.
Also, necessary approvals and all procedures have to be finished before making the announcement, he said. Asked for an update on Chandrayaan-2, he said,
"The orbiter is doing very well and all the payload operations have commenced. We have not received any signal from the lander."
He said the country's space agency has a series of missions lined up in coming months and years.
"The most important mission for us is 'Gaganyaan', the manned mission to the space. ISRO is working very hard on it," he said.
Gaganyaan, scheduled to be launched in 2022, aims to send three astronauts to space and bring them back safely.
"As per the prime minister's announcement, we have to achieve this success by 2022," Sivan said. Chandrayaan-2 lander Vikram lost contact with the ISRO base during its landing on the lunar surface on September 7.
Later, Sivan said it had hard landing. Chandrayaan-2 comprised an orbiter, lander (Vikram) and rover (Pragyan).
