Moon mission over? ISRO loses contact with Chandrayaan

Less than a year ago, Chandrayaan, India's maiden mission to the moon blasted off with much fanfare, a mission that captured the imagination of the nation. But today, the news is not good. Contact has been lost with the Chandrayaan satellite, and it looks like it's all over for the mission.

India's maiden mission to the moon has run into serious trouble. The spacecraft has lost contact with earth. ISRO feels it can still be recovered, but some top sources in ISRO have told NDTV 'the mission is over'. Yet in its short over-300 day life, the spacecraft has indeed achieved a lot. The world over, space agencies have had many failures on the moon.

Chandrayaan is today aimlessly orbiting around the moon at 200 km, India has lost radio contact with the satellite - it can neither send or receive signals.

For all practical purposes, India's first mission to the moon is lost in space. The landmark satellite was launched from Sriharikota on October 22 in 2008 and has had a rather troubled life on the moon.

Within weeks of the launch, the spacecraft almost got burnt due to overheating. And later, a power system on board failed.

In May, the spacecraft lost its fine guidance when the star sensor packed up.

And the latest trouble happened a little after midnight when all radio communication was lost with spacecraft.

So were the crores India spent on the mission all a waste. Not at all. In its very first attempt, not only did India reach the moon but also placed the Indian Tricolour on the moon a huge achievement.

In its 10 months in the moon orbit, the spacecraft collected almost 90-95 per cent of all data it was to collect, which will keep Indian and foreign scientists busy for two to three years to analyse the data.

The spacecraft was designed to live for 24 months in the hostile environment of the moon and that it has all but packed up in 10 months is reason enough for ISRO to now set up a full-fledged Failure Analysis Committee to investigate what went wrong.

Meanwhile, lesson will hopefully be learnt so that Chandrayaan-2, being made at a cost of over Rs 400 crore, and to be launched in 2012, will not face the same problems. This setback only shows that space faring is a high stakes, high-risk business certainly not for the faint hearted.