India may abandon moon mission after radio link snaps
India may have to abort its first moon mission after attempts Saturday to restore radio contact with its lunarcraft Chandrayaan-1 proved futile.
The spacecraft, orbiting the moon at a distance of 200 km, last transmitted data to the space agency’s Deep Space Network (DSN), 40 km from Bangalore, at 00:25 IST Saturday.
The 514 kg Chandrayaan orbits the moon every 100 minutes.
Its antenna stopped working due to a sudden failure of the communication systems in the spacecraft. There is no spare antenna to restore the contact.
Scientists are analysing the data at the DSN to check the health of the spacecraft subsystems.
The $80 million (Rs.380 crore) Chandrayaan was launched amid much fanfare 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 that was landed on the lunar surface Nov 14.
The spacecraft, orbiting the moon at a distance of 200 km, last transmitted data to the space agency’s Deep Space Network (DSN), 40 km from Bangalore, at 00:25 IST Saturday.
The 514 kg Chandrayaan orbits the moon every 100 minutes.
Its antenna stopped working due to a sudden failure of the communication systems in the spacecraft. There is no spare antenna to restore the contact.
Scientists are analysing the data at the DSN to check the health of the spacecraft subsystems.
The $80 million (Rs.380 crore) Chandrayaan was launched amid much fanfare 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 that was landed on the lunar surface Nov 14.
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