India has lost contact with its first mooncraft, an unmanned satellite launched amid much fanfare last October, the national space agency said. "The radio contact was lost at 1:30am IST (2000 GMT Friday) by the Deep Space Network (DSN)," the state-run Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in a statement here.
Scientists at the organisation are reviewing data to analyse the health of the spacecraft's systems, ISRO said. The Chandrayaan-1 satellite was launched on October 22, 2008 and then launched a TV-set-sized probe painted in the green-white-and-orange colours of the Indian flag, which landed on the moon on November 14.
The landing of the probe on the moon's surface vaulted the country into the league of space-faring nations led by the United States and regional neighbours Russia, China and Japan and was seen as a proud moment in the country's development. The first probe was intended as a first step towards landing an unmanned moon rover by 2012 and the ISRO also aims to launch satellites to study Mars and Venus.
Critics at the time underlined that India, which has hundreds of millions of people living in deep poverty, should not have embarked on a space race with starstruck regional powers. This is the first time radio contact has been lost with the spacecraft, which suffered a setback earlier this year when one of its sensors was burnt due to solar radiation. As a result, it had to suspend some scientific experiments and raised its lunar orbit to 200 kilometres (124 miles) instead of the original 100 kilometres.
Scientists at the organisation are reviewing data to analyse the health of the spacecraft's systems, ISRO said. The Chandrayaan-1 satellite was launched on October 22, 2008 and then launched a TV-set-sized probe painted in the green-white-and-orange colours of the Indian flag, which landed on the moon on November 14.
The landing of the probe on the moon's surface vaulted the country into the league of space-faring nations led by the United States and regional neighbours Russia, China and Japan and was seen as a proud moment in the country's development. The first probe was intended as a first step towards landing an unmanned moon rover by 2012 and the ISRO also aims to launch satellites to study Mars and Venus.
Critics at the time underlined that India, which has hundreds of millions of people living in deep poverty, should not have embarked on a space race with starstruck regional powers. This is the first time radio contact has been lost with the spacecraft, which suffered a setback earlier this year when one of its sensors was burnt due to solar radiation. As a result, it had to suspend some scientific experiments and raised its lunar orbit to 200 kilometres (124 miles) instead of the original 100 kilometres.
12 comments:
Oh really !!!.
Atleast most of the satellites put in space outlive their life expectancy. It seems this does not apply to ISRO, after making blatant claims to conquer the moon and the rest of space for INDIA.
Should put one of them monkeys on INDIA's maiden flight to the moon. The most efficient way to get rid of them, head-in-ones-arse people.
I dont mind jokers like Ashmann. But lately i fee you are being biased in selection of your reports AD. you selected this piece of article when almost all other reports also mention that the mission was already mostly complete.
Calling critics Jokers is what you'd expect from people fearful of the mirror.
ISRO has had success with satellite building and launching. We don't have any/many advanced semiconductor, micro-electronics or supporting industries, so you could bet that the satellite and other capabilities are a tad better than those built with vacuum tubes. ISRO would never achieve anything without the massive amount of foreign hand-holding it received. Given the amount of money thrown into these projects, even a simian country like pakistan could achieve similar goals.
Remember this ISRO failure is coming at a time, when they have been boasting of a moon landing and who-knows-what-crap. They were hiding the fact that they had problems with this mission for some time, have not been forthcoming with the exact problem or anything of that matter. Even now that they are forced to call it 'totaled', they are still not forthcoming or seem to know what the problem is.
You've got a satellite that has a two year life expectancy and it goes kaput in less than 10 months, the Government should be taking ISRO to task. But ISRO keeps on rambling of a moon mission, etc, the money needs to keep coming. Only the middle class Indians are paying for it and everything; politicians, businesses, slum dogs, farmers all these people don't pay their due, just suck-on like parasites.
Every penny spent on military research, etc should be worthwhile and accounted for, slackers must be flogged. Thank you AD for re-surfacing the article, people should grounded in reality and money thirsty enterprises should be kept in check.
Does anyone know from where this blog published? And who is in charge? I found that some of my comments have been deleted. I am guess this will also be deleted.
Ashmann, update yourself with some facts before qualifying yourself as a critic. Almost all of ISRO satellites do operate beyond their expected life, you can verify this easy. ISRO has always been financially profitable thanks to their remote sensing and communication services. I live next to an ISRO semiconductor manufacturing facility called SCL in Mohali(Pb). ISRO make rockets which you probably cant appreciate. To give you an idea a PSLV solid booster motor alone weighs 150tons and has a 2.8m dia. Compare that to Shaheen or whatever you have got. There are a thousand things I want to say but it would be better if you educate yourself before babbling on forums.
A blog for the porks by the porkys!
SUPARICO long way to go!Send AQ on stealing missions!
Ashmann and all the fucking porkis live in their dreams...thinking of the virgin fathimas they will get when they fucking die...why dont you blow yourselves jusk like other porkis you dirty motherfucking cunt
Lol, Indians chat crap about Chinese equipment but cant make reliable piston trainers,they satellites are just assembles of foreign equipment. Indians tend to balme Pakistan because it helps them cope with failures.
Example of "nuclear fizzle" Habit of Indian officials lie about achievments of programs.
i really think that india should first try to solve peoples issues rather than moon mission etc.
space projects should not be at the cost of people.Most importantly India should stop population growth on a war footing.
Wonderful blog. I liked it.
Research and development is the only way of growth. People here are talking about money should be utilized in development of people. Govt. is doing enough for their development. We need such missions. And to all the so called "critics", if they stop funding all the Kashmiri fundamentalists, terrorist, stop trying to keep up with Indian arm forces by spending 80% of their total expenditure to get bigger missiles and weapons, and spend that money on projects like this, they too will be able to start some space missions like this. And also to the very comment of "Ashmann" that the mission was a failure, dude.. you got to try first, to fail. And thats how you learn about you mistakes, perfect them and succeed. Be a sport. If your neighbor is trying to break into space technology, you should feel proud about it. If Pakistan does anything like that despite failure or success I would feel proud of it.
As quoted by someone, if you never failed, you never lived. Thomas Edison failed 1000 times while making his simple bulb. When asked, he said, I learned 1000 ways of what not to do. Have that attitude dude.
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