India terminates moon mission, ISRO chief to meet PM (Lead)
August 30th, 2009 - 10:06 pm ICT by IANS
Panaji, Aug 30 (IANS) India Sunday decided to terminate its first unmanned moon mission as contact could not be re-established with the spacecraft Chandrayaan, Indian Space Research organisation (ISRO) Chairman G. Madhavan Nair said, adding that he would meet the prime minister next week to brief him about the development.
“We are disappointed with what has happened, but we have managed to salvage a large volume of data,” Nair told reporters here.
“We are content with the result,” he said, adding that nearly 95 percent of the mission’s objectives have been completed.
“Nearly 70,000 images of the moon have been captured during the mission. We were also conducting joint experiments with National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) scientists and sharing signals received from our spacecraft,” he said.
Chandrayaan-1, launched in October last year, sent last message 00.25 IST Saturday and the space agency’s Deep Space Network (DSN) lost radio contact with the spacecraft five minutes later.
Nair said a high-level committee was appointed to probe the failure, adding that the exact details about the reasons which led to Chandrayaan’s failure could not be figured out in the absence of telemetry signals, which provide crucial indicators.
The computers on board the craft could have malfunctioned, triggering off the communication failure, he added.
“The power signals which go to the computer systems failed and we had to terminate the mission,” Nair said, adding that the spacecraft was orbiting the moon at a distance of about 200 km and it would take nearly 1,000 days for it to hit the moon’s surface.
“We have already initiated discussions with the US and Russia to use their radars to track the orbiting spacecraft,” Nair said.
He also said lessons will be learnt from Chandrayaan-I and this failure would not delay the launch of Chandrayaan-II.
“There are some marginal corrections needed,” he said, adding that he would be meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh next week to speak to him about the mission.
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- Radio contact lost with Chandrayaan-I : ISRO - Aug 29, 2009
- India calls off Chandrayaan moon mission - Aug 30, 2009
- Data from Chandrayaan moon mission to go public - Sep 05, 2010
- Chandrayaan sensor failure not to impact lunar mission life: ISRO (Second lead) - Jul 17, 2009
- More indigenous components in second moon mission: ISRO - Nov 23, 2009
- Lunarcraft loses contact, India may abort moon mission (Second Lead) - Aug 29, 2009
- Radio contact with India's lunarcraft Chandrayaan lost - Aug 29, 2009
- India's moon mission operation suspended (Third Lead) - Aug 30, 2009
- Chances of restoring contact with Chandrayaan slim: ISRO - Aug 30, 2009
- India may abandon moon mission after radio link snaps (Lead) - Aug 29, 2009
- Chandrayaan-II to be launched by 2013 - Jul 04, 2009
- Twin NASA probes reach lunar orbit - Jan 02, 2012
Tags: chandrayaan, communication failure, deep space network, exact details, images of the moon, indian space research, indian space research organisation, isro chairman, launch, madhavan, moon mission, nair, nasa scientists, national aeronautics and space, national aeronautics and space administration, national aeronautics and space administration nasa, power signals, radars, radio contact, telemetry signals