Bangalore, Aug 30 (IANS) India’s first unmanned moon mission was called off Sunday, a day after the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) lost radio contact with it. Here are the main highlights of the Chandrayaan odyssey:
– The $80 million (Rs.380 crore) Chadrayaan-1 was launched Oct 22, 2008, from ISRO’s spaceport Sriharikota, about 90 km northeast of Chennai, on board the 316-tonne polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV-CII), with 11 scientific payloads, including the moon impact probe.

– Of the 11 scientific instruments or payloads, five are Indian, three from the European Space Agency (ESA), two from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the US, and one from Bulgaria.

– The moon impact probe was landed on the lunar surface Nov 14, 2008.

– The 514-kg Chandrayaan was orbiting the moon every 100 minutes.

– During the 10 months in space, Chandrayaan has completed 3,400 orbits in 312 days and transmitted volumes of data from sophisticated scientific instruments such as terrain mapping camera, hyper-spectral imager and moon mineralogy mapper.

– Chandrayaan’s high-resolution cameras relayed over 70,000 digital images of the moon, providing breathtaking views of mountains and craters, including those in the permanently shadowed area of the moon’s polar region.

– A critical star sensor burnt due to excessive solar radiation in April-May while orbiting the moon at a distance of 100 km. The incident forced the ISRO to raise the spacecraft’s orbit to 200 km May 19.

– The spacecraft last transmitted data to the space agency’s Deep Space Network (DSN) at 12.00 a.m. Saturday.

– Its antenna stopped working due to a sudden communication systems failure. It has no spare antenna to restore the contact.