India’s space agency has abandoned its inaugural moon mission

India’s space agency has abandoned its inaugural moon mission a day after scientists lost communication with the orbiting Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. “We don’t have contact... and we had to terminate...,” said the head of Isro - the Indian Space Research Organisation. The unmanned craft was launched last October in what was billed as a two-year mission of exploration. The launch was seen as a major step for India as it seeks to keep pace with other space-faring Asian nations. Despite the termination of the mission, ISRO chief G. Madhavan Nair told reporters that the project was a great success and 95 per cent of its objectives had been completed. “We could collect a large volume of data, including 70,000 images of the moon,” he added.

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