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India loses contact with first moon craft: space agency
New Delhi (AFP) Aug 29, 2009 India has lost contact with its first mooncraft, an unmanned satellite launched amid much fanfare last October, the national space agency said Saturday. "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. Share This Article With Planet Earth
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Microsats For The MoonSydney, Australia (SPX) Aug 20, 2009 For decades, microsatellites have been a boon to spaceflight. A small satellite can be built and launched fairly cheaply, sometimes hitching a ride for free aboard a large satellite launch. So far, microsatellites have not ventured very far into space. Could one go all the way to the Moon? Amateur groups have speculated on this possibility for years, but none have actually built a bird and ... read more |
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