spacetoday.net: space news from around the webin association with SpaceNews


Contact lost with Chandrayaan-1
Posted: Sat, Aug 29, 2009, 3:01 PM ET (1901 GMT)
Chandrayaan 1 illustration (ISRO) The Indian space agency ISRO reported Saturday that it has lost communications with its first lunar orbiter, raising the possibility of a failure that would end the mission. According to an ISRO statement, contact was "abruptly" lost with Chandrayaan-1 at 4:00 pm EDT Friday (2000 GMT Friday, 1:30 am Indian time Saturday); ground stations had received data from the spacecraft just an hour earlier. The cause of the communications failure isn't known, but some project officials told Indian media that it was unlikely that contact would be restored with the spacecraft. Chandrayaan-1 was launched last October as India's first mission beyond Earth orbit and was returning images and other data about the Moon; it was designed to operate for two years. Just over a week ago Chandrayaan-1 performed a joint bistatic radar experiment with NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft in a bid to look for water ice in the Moon's polar regions.
<<previous article   next article>>
news in brief
Cosmonauts perform ISS spacewalk
Posted: Sat, Oct 18 11:21 AM ET (1521 GMT)

Ariane 64 debut slips to 2026
Posted: Sat, Oct 18 11:17 AM ET (1517 GMT)

SpaceX wins permission to double Vandenberg launch rate
Posted: Sat, Oct 18 11:16 AM ET (1516 GMT)

news links
Thursday, October 23
Vantor Secures USSF Contract For Space-to-Space Imaging
Aviation Week — 5:44 am ET (0944 GMT)


about spacetoday.net   ·   info@spacetoday.net   ·   mailing list