Radio contact lost with Chandrayaan-I : ISRO

Bangalore, Aug.29 (ANI): Radio contact with Chandrayaan-I spacecraft was abruptly lost at 1:30 a.m. on Saturday.

Deep Space Network at Byalalu near Bangalore received the data from Chandrayaan-I during the previous orbit upto 12:25 a.m.

Detailed review of the Telemetry data received from the spacecraft is in progress and health of the spacecraft subsystems is being analyzed, said an ISRO press release.

It may be recalled that Chandrayaan-I spacecraft was launched from Satish Dhawan Space Centre Sriharikota on October 22, 2008.

The spacecraft has completed 312 days in orbit making more than 3400 orbits around the Moon and providing large volume of data from sophisticated sensors like Terrain Mapping Camera, Hyper-spectral Imager, Moon Mineralogy Mapper etc., meeting most of the scientific objectives of the mission.

Last month, G Madhavan Nair, Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), had expressed satisfaction with the successful collection of data about the moon by Chandrayaan, country"s maiden lunar mission.

Nair told the Ninth convocation of the International Institute of Information and Technology at Bangalore that the tracking and detection of several factors by Chandrayaan are important steps in mapping the mineralogical composition of moon"s surface which in turn would enable further study in its origin and evolution.

"I think I am happy to say that Chandrayaan has been completely successful in collecting all the data what we wanted. First was the three dimensional of the lunar surface, also getting the mineral content of the surface and then trying to use the extra instruments," said Nair.

"All this went on very well and we are more or less very happy that the mission is complete," he added.

Nair also added that the second moon mission would be launched by 2012. (ANI)