Posted by Ray Katz in current, moon
India’s moon mission ends—suddenly
Chandrayaan-1: poised for launch
After more than 300 days, India’s Chandrayaan-1 moon probe just stopped working. Some sort of technical failure caused the probe to lose contact with its earth-bound controllers. Repeated attempts to restore contact with the vehicle failed—and the Indian space agency declared the mission to be over.
That said, India first lunar probe performed admirably, and demonstrated the skill of their rapidly emerging proficiency in space exploration. (The mission did suffer other technical failures; space flight it difficult.)
The chairman of India’s space agency (ISRO) Madhavan Nair noted that the probe had already completed 95% of its tasks and the (scheduled) additional year of operation would not have added much.
The ending is a disappointment. But it’s hard to see the effort as anything but a success. India’s next lunar probe, Chandrayaan-2, will attempt a soft-landing with a rover in 2011.
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