India terminates maiden moon mission abruptly

Panaji: India's first lunar mission Chandrayaan-1 has been terminated abruptly after repeated attempts to restore radio contact with the spacecraft failed, a top space official said Sunday.

"We had to terminate the mission as we don't have contact with the spacecraft. Though we are disappointed with what has happened, we have managed to salvage a large volume of data," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman G. Madhavan Nair told reporters at Panaji.The space agency's deep space network (DSN) at Byalalu, about 40 km from Bangalore, lost radio contact with the mooncraft early Saturday while orbiting at 200 km away from the lunar surface.

Repeated attempts to re-establish the communication link with the beleaguered spacecraft from the space agency's telemetry, tracking and command network (Istrac) at Peenya on the outskirts of the city turned futile.

"Our expert team has come to a conclusion that it is not possible to restore the radio link, as the computers onboard the spacecraft for controlling the mission are non-functional for various reasons. Without the computers functioning, the mission cannot proceed," Nair pointed out.

DSN last received data from the lunarcraft at 00:25 IST Saturday when it was over the Indian subcontinent region.