https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/india-loses-contact-with-lunar-lander/

India’s interplanetary space program is young but shows no lack of ambition. In 2008 the country launched a spacecraft, Chandrayaan-1, into lunar orbit for the first time. Next came its Mars Orbiter Mission, which arrived in orbit around the Red Planet in 2014. Today, sadly, India apparently fell short of what could have been its greatest milestone yet—an uncrewed landing on the surface of the moon as part of its Chandrayaan-2 mission. If it had been successful, it would have become only the fourth nation in history to perform a soft lunar landing, after the U.S., the former Soviet Union and China.

At 4:20pm Eastern time, the signal from the Vikram lander was lost after its trajectory began to deviate from its planned path, and silence settled over the crowd gathered at the mission’s control center in Bengaluru. At the time, it was in the “fine braking phase” of its descent, and about two kilometers above the lunar surface. Although details have yet to emerge, it appears something went wrong during the descent, likely bringing this exciting portion of the Chandrayaan-2 mission to a somber end. The lander is believed to have crashed into the lunar surface. Earlier this week, the lander had separated from the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter before beginning its lonely voyage to the surface. The descent’s final moments, described in advance as a “terrifying 15 minutes” by the head of the Indian Space Research Organization, would have seen Vikram’s autonomous landing system use thrusters to guide the spacecraft to a gentle touchdown in the lunar dust.