Communication link with Chandrayaan lost

[Khajur]

Did ISRO goof up in predicting Chandrayaan mission life?


Did Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) goof up when it announced that Chandrayaan-1 would have a mission life of two years as none of the lunar craft launched by other nations lasted that long?

On the hindsight, officials of the Bangalore-based space agency admit that they probably did.

"No lunar spacecraft works for two years. We did a mistake by telling it has a mission life of two years," an official said on condition of anonymity, noting that lunar craft of other countries had not lasted beyond 6-7 months.

"By saying it has a two-year life, we are caught in a sticky situation," the official said.

Radio contact with the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft,India's maiden moon mission launched on October 22 last year, was abruptly lost early yesterday, with Project Director M Annadurai saying that the mission is now over.

"Ten months is a very good life. Mapping-wise everything has been completed, except for a few patches," an ISRO official said, referring to performance of Chandrayaan-1.

Officials said the antenna is being rotated in all directions to pick up signals but admit "the chances are slim".

Officials said "some catastrophic failure either in transmitter or receiving systems" is the likely cause of the snapping of radio link. "Majority of the electronic systems are okay. Only communication system has failed", they said.

The situation could be compared to a switched-off cellphone wherein incoming and outgoing communication cannot happen, the official said.

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Did ISRO goof up in predicting Chandrayaan's life?: Rediff.com news

 

[Khajur]

ISRO calls off Chandrayaan mission

India's first moon mission Chandrayaan is over. Indian Space Research Organisation chief Madhavan Nair said the spacecraft was not receiving signals and hence they called off the mission.

He added an assessment committee would be formed to find out what went wrong. He said the committee would go into details and also study the shortcomings which led to the incident.

Chandrayaan had lost radio contacts on Saturday.

ISRO calls off Chandrayaan mission: Rediff.com news

 

[Neutral]

Ohhh crappp.... That number is just for where you are using it, for satisfying your ego.

I would not risk the lives of 3 or 4 indonauts for the proven irresponsibility of people like this.

Did you misinterpreted my post?

All in all i was saying mission was Success and India has a Gained Experience

And 95% figure was stated by the ISRO chairman

 

[gogbot]

Russian and The US has crashes all the time, space travel is not safe, it never was. There's always a calculated risk involved in every mission. How many astronauts and cosmonauts have died so far?, how many missions have failed or been called of?. NASA crashed a lander on Mars so does that mean they should not go to mars anymore? Or when the miere space station crashed, does that mean they should make any more space stations?.
they all took them as stepping stones to success. This is scientific research on the frontier to go to space is to go somewhere where no life ever went. That it self should be an achievement deserving of merit.


For all we know the problem with the lunar orbiter could be any number of things from simple equipment failure , TO micro meteorites. Instead of bagging ISRO at every chance you get, you should appreciate what the scientists and engineers did for man kind as a whole. The complete map of the moon is a first as far as i know.

And please don't compare things like India's delays in domestic or indigenous defense to this. Especially those that were started before 1990.

 

[manishmaithani]

ISI sponsered and trained aliens came and sabotaged it.

 

[IndiaNews98]

Chandrayaan has accomplished 95% of its target, so it is successful.

Chandrayaan II will go even further than this. Later Mars Mission will make ISRO among the world's best space agencies.

Indian Space Age has come.

 

[Spitfighter]

Interesting article, IMO the bbc is the most balanced news network out there.

BBC NEWS | South Asia | India Moon mission is 'mixed success'

India has abandoned its inaugural Moon mission, 10 months after it was launched. Science writer Pallava Bagla examines the mission's performance.

So was India's inaugural Moon mission a success or a failure?

Neither. By all accounts, it has been a mixed performance. Also, a definitive answer is not easy to give - it is possibly as grey as the surface of the Moon.

This was an expensive scientific experiment with many objectives and conducted in full public glare. Most engineering goals have been fulfilled, but pious promises to deliver "good science" from the mission are still to be met.

Big achievement

India launched its $100m unmanned space craft on 22 October 2008 from Sriharikota on the coast of the Bay of Bengal.

First, the spacecraft designed and built by the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) survived huge odds and successfully reached the Moon's orbit.

This in itself was a big achievement since neither Russia or America succeeded in their maiden attempts; and there were several failures even before they got anywhere near the Moon.

So did India ride on the shoulders of earlier successes?

Certainly not, since the know-how and technologies to go to the Moon are just not available for the asking. Each nation has to learn on its own. India experimented and did that with complete success.

The only other country to have managed a similar maiden feat was China - its mission Chang'e-1 in 2007 lasted 16 months in space, according to the Chinese National Space Administration.

The Indian mission survived for about 10 months in space; most other missions to the Moon have been much more short-lived.

So did the Indian space agency, in its naivety, over-stretch and over-estimate the craft's life when it planned for a 24-month mission?

Rocket carrying 10 satellites is launched from Sriharikota
The mission lasted 10 months in space

Possibly. The answer may emerge in the findings of the "failure analysis committee" that Isro has put in place after this debacle.

Despite being dubbed by Isro as an "engineering success", the mission had a rough ride around the Moon.

A fuel leak from the rocket almost aborted its lift-off. Within days of reaching the Moon a power system failed, and a back-up system had to be activated.

Soon, the spacecraft started overheating due to the intense summer heat on the Moon. Isro scientists say it was deft mission management that saved it from a total burnout.

A few months into the mission the spacecraft lost its fine guidance system when the onboard "star sensor" packed up in the intense radiation around the Moon.

But, every time an instrument on this 1380kg robot gave way, mission controllers at Isro found an innovative solution to keep the mission alive.

Finally on 29 August 2009, the space agency lost all contact with Chandrayaan after a catastrophic failure - possibly in its power supply system. A day later the mission was "terminated", although Isro chief G Madhavan Nair declared it had been a "complete success".

'Two-in-one mission'

The Indian mission was in certain respects much more challenging than the Chinese maiden lunar mission which was a simple national orbiter.

Chandrayaan-1 was literally a two-in-one mission, since the main satellite was to orbit at 100km above the Moon and then a tiny gadget the size of a computer monitor was to attempt a landing on the Moon surface.

The mission did this on 14 November 2008. No nation to date had succeeded in both a lunar orbiter and an impactor at the first attempt.

Madhavan Nair
Mr Nair says the mission is a 'complete success' (Photo: Pallava Bagla)

This was more than an experiment. It was also a brave global geo-political statement since the probe that crash landed on the Moon also permanently placed India's flag on the Moon.

Having done this, India became the fourth nation to have done this after Russia, America and the European Space Agency.

This is hugely significant because, if ever the Moon's resources are to be divided, India's rightful share can be claimed having achieved what others have not been able to do.

There are many other firsts to this mission.

In a highly un-Indian trait, the Indian space agency delivered the Moon mission with no cost or time overrun at $100m and within eight years of it first being suggested.

The spacecraft carried 11 different sophisticated instruments, one of the largest suites of experiments ever carried to the Moon.

The objective was to remotely map the resources of the Moon, prepare a three-dimensional atlas of it and look for water.

All instruments worked for about 10 months in the hostile lunar environment. Dr Nair calls it a "more than 100% success of Indian technology".

India also created a new model of international partnership.

On its own initiative India announced that it would be happy to piggyback instruments from global partners.

After a huge competition six instruments sourced from the European Space Agency (Esa), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) and Bulgaria were chosen.

Moon surface picture by Chandrayaan-1
Chandrayaan peered into the deepest craters searching for water

Bernard Foing, the chief scientist for Space Sciences at Esa calls the Indian mission "the first multi-continent, multi-country lunar mission ever to be undertaken".

A little known fact is that India did not charge any money to fly these instruments 400,000km away: all got a free ride to the Moon, merely in exchange for sharing the scientific data.

Search for water

Chandrayaan-1 was also the first and the most detailed search for water on the Moon - to date water has never been found.

A miniature American radar onboard the Chandrayaan peered into the Moon's deepest craters searching for "water ice".

The Moon's surface is so parched that scientists feel the only location where water could exist would be in the permanently shadowed craters on the lunar poles.

But these are so deep and dark that sunlight never reaches them - hence the only way to peep inside is to send a radar signal down into them.

The global collaborative team of the mission is very excited about the findings.

"Never seen before images of the permanently shadowed craters Moon have been captured," says Paul D Spudis of the Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, USA and principal investigator of the payload sent to search for water.

"The new radar images are not only visually arresting, but they will be extremely useful in unravelling the complex geological history of the Moon as a whole," he says.

Other scientific reports on findings are in the offing. But unless the results are published, questions will continue to be asked about whether the mission fulfilled its exalted scientific objectives.

The termination of the Moon mission will, however, not affect India's plans in space.

The country is already planning a second mission to the Moon, Chandrayaan-2, with Russian collaboration in 2011-12; a mission to an asteroid; an unmanned mission to Mars in 2013 and a human space flight in 2015.

Upbeat Isro scientists are saying "Chandrayaan-1 is dead, long live Chandrayaan". The jury will be out - until the scientific papers come in.

 

[IndiaNews98]

Long Live Chandrayaan! Long Live ISRO!!

 

[Speeder]

95% tasks were achieved within 10 months of a 2-year mission ?

In another word: it supposed to use the rest 14 months to achieve the remaining 5% task... What's the nature of these 5% tasks which need most of the mission time? Heading for the Mars?

Excuse me, but logically it sounds a bit funny, doesn't it?

Either the misson planner or the news speaker is a joker! Or both are?

 

[Gin ka Pakistan]

Let see three countries in world can shot a object in the sky which one should be blamed aaaaaaaaaa chi--

 

[EyelessInGaza]

95% tasks were achieved within 10 months of a 2-year mission ?

In another word: it supposed to use the rest 14 months to achieve the remaining 5% task... What's the nature of these 5% tasks which need most of the mission time? Heading for the Mars?

Excuse me, but logically it sounds a bit funny, doesn't it?

Either the misson planner or the news speaker is a joker! Or both are?

It is funny, now two ways about it.

I don't know if the mission was a success or not; it was an important step and we will improve no doubt, but right now it seems to me that a lot of jokers in the Indian set up are trying to save face.

 

[arihant]

95% tasks were achieved within 10 months of a 2-year mission ?

In another word: it supposed to use the rest 14 months to achieve the remaining 5% task... What's the nature of these 5% tasks which need most of the mission time? Heading for the Mars?

Taking pictures.....

Either the misson planner or the news speaker is a joker! Or both are?

Jokers are those who troll.

Excuse me, but logically it sounds a bit funny, doesn't it?

It's your own logic. So, let not exceed it.

 

[Chanakyaa]

95% tasks were achieved within 10 months of a 2-year mission ?

In another word: it supposed to use the rest 14 months to achieve the remaining 5% task... What's the nature of these 5% tasks which need most of the mission time? Heading for the Mars?

Excuse me, but logically it sounds a bit funny, doesn't it?

Either the misson planner or the news speaker is a joker! Or both are?

Well, Mapping of Moon perhaps at different resolutions cant be achieved in a few days.


Besides Chandrayaan was a mission to test if we can do it.. we did it..
The probe in a way did its 90% Job by just reaching the orbit of the moon ( NOT archived by US or USSR in one Shot, as India Did It. )
. It was more of a Technology demonstrator.


Now Chandrayaan II will be a serious task, as The Results will be of greater concern rather just getting the ship in the orbit.

 

[indiatech]

At the end of the day and at the end of Chandrayan-I , we have the terrain map of most of the moons surface with good resolution
and the INDIAN flag on the moon. Nothing else maters.

Not all countries are capable of of it or have the priviledge or desire for it.