(CNN) India's historic attempt to soft land a rover on the moon may have ended in failure moments before landing and scientists scrambled to analyze the final communication from Chandrayaan-2.

"Vikram lander descent was as planned and normal performance was observed till the altitude of 2.1 km. Subsequently the communication from the lander to ground station was lost. The data is being analyzed," said K. Sivan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation, the country's equivalent of NASA.

The control room in the city of Bengaluru filled with scientists underwent a visible change as updates from the lander faded. The crowd had celebrated every small step during the controlled descent and at 1:55 a.m. local time on Saturday (4:25 p.m. ET Friday), the moment the landing was expected to take place, silence descended.

Chandrayaan-2 was supposed to touch down at 1:55 a.m. Saturday (4:25 p.m. ET Friday).

"In life, there are ups and downs. The country is proud of you. And all your hard work has taught us something ... Hope for the best ... You have served the country well and served science and humanity well," said Prime Minister Narendra Modi after the announcement.

Later, Modi tweeted: "We remain hopeful and will continue working hard on our space programme." He was scheduled to address the nation later Saturday.

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