Scientists who participated in the maiden Indian moon mission —Indian, American and European — are hoping to publish significant papers from data collected during the scientific mission that concluded prematurely, the Indian Space Research Organisation has said.

At the conclusion of a two-day review of scientific data from the Chandrayaan-I mission here on Tuesday, ISRO said “scientists expressed satisfaction on the mission’s excellent performance as well as the high-quality of data sent by the spacecraft”.

The meeting featuring ISRO, NASA, European Space Agency scientists reviewed the data obtained from the 11 payloads onboard Chandrayaan-I and concluded that some of the data were exceptional and provided new perspectives on the moon.

“Scientists feel that data obtained by some of the payloads is of exceptional quality and the initial analysis of it has already resulted in a notable shift in the understanding of the working of a planetary body,” ISRO said in a statement. Data quality surpassed initial expectations of participating scientists, the space agency said. “The 11 payloads of Chandrayaan-I have largely met their objectives of studying the moon from different perspectives.”

Chandrayaan-I, India’s first and the world’s most cost-effective, had been launched in October 2008 with a stated mission life of two years. However, it was aborted last month, just 10 months into its life, after it developed terminal technical glitches and lost contact with the control centre in Bangalore.

ISRO has been claiming that most of the science objectives of Chandrayaan-I had already been fulfilled by the time the mission failed.

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