Chandrayaan loses contact with ISRO

Indian Space scientists have lost contact with Chandrayan I, putting the entire mission into serious trouble. Detailed review of the Telemetry data received from the spacecraft is in progress and health of the spacecraft subsystems is being analysed. Satyen Mohapatra reports. FULL COVERAGE

Indian Space scientists have lost contact with Chandrayan I, putting the entire mission into serious trouble. Detailed review of the Telemetry data received from the spacecraft is in progress and health of the spacecraft subsystems is being analysed.

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Deputy Director Directorate of Quality and Reliability Indian Space Research Organisation S.Satish speaking to HT said, " Communication link with the space craft has been disrupted. It is not possible to send commands or receive data from the space craft. We are trying to analyse the data received till the last orbit to find out what exactly happened. Till the analysis is complete we cannot say what is the reason for the loss of communication."

The communication link of the Ground Station Network broke with Chandrayan I around 1.30 a.m. .

The Ground Station Network comprising of Indian Deep Space Network , Mission Operations Complex and Indian Space Science Data Centre maintains the vital communication link with the space craft besides ensuring its proper orbit and conducting payload of the spacecraft.

Just a week back on Aug.21 Chadrayan - I orbiting the moon had successfully conducted an experiment in tandem with NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) to throw more light on the surface feature of the moon, Satish said.

The LRO's Mini RF (Radio Frequency) equipment and Chandrayan's MINI - SAR conducted a Bi-Static-Observation with both spacecrafts pointing their equipments from two different angles onto the same spot (Erlanger Crater) on the moon at the same time. Getting the reflections from two different angles it was hoped it would yield more information of the possibility of existence of ice in the permanently shadowed region near North Pole of the moon, according to ISRO.

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 meeting most of the scientific objectives of the mission.