India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft on Saturday lost contact with ISRO's ground station, putting a question mark on the fate of country's maiden moon mission launched in October last year. ISRO had to abruptly abandon its 10-month maiden moon mission after the spacecraft lost contact with its controllers, much ahead of its two-year mission period.
Chandrayaan-I, which propelled India into the select group of moon-faring nations, has completed 312 days in space and more than 3400 orbits around the moon. The spacecraft is shaped like a cuboid with a solar panel projecting from one of its sides. The state-of-the-art sub-systems of the spacecraft facilitates safe and efficient functioning of its 11 payloads.Earlier, the mission had developed snag in its star sensor which helps focus the spacecraft to a particular lunar position and scientists had to patch up two other instruments to keep its orientation. The ground control had lost total contact with the spacecraft and mission was declared over. Chandrayaan orbited for 312 days around the moon.
The project was launched to study the surface of the moon using light and produce a map of its chemical characteristics and three-dimensional topography.It is powered by a single solar panel generating a maximum power of 700W. A 36 Ampere-Hour Lithium ion battery supplies power when the solar panel is not illuminated by the suThe lunar mission carries five ISRO payloads and six payloads from other international space agencies including NASA, ESA, and the Bulgarian Aerospace Agency, which were carried free of cost.n.The remote sensing lunar satellite had a weight of 1,380 kilograms at launch and 675 kilograms in lunar orbit and carries high resolution remote sensing equipment for visible, near infrared, and soft and hard X-ray frequencies.
The unmanned lunar exploration mission includes a lunar orbiter and an impactor. India launched the spacecraft by a modified version of the PSLV, PSLV C11.Launched by India's Indian Space Research Organisation on 22 October 2008 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Chandrayaan-1 is India's first mission to the Moon. The mission gave a major boost to India's space program, as the country competes with Asian nations China and Japan in exploring the Moon.
