The premature death of the much-feted Chandrayaan-I mission may be a big setback for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) but it cannot be called a failure.

The space mission that had fired the imagination of not just scientists but the entire nation had already achieved many of its scientific objectives and showcased India’s technological prowess in the field of space. It was the cheapest lunar mission ever (with a budget of just Rs 386 crore), carried the maximum number of payloads, was the most international in nature with 11 payloads coming from six countries and was expected to return the maximum science value.

Though some of the objectives will no doubt remain incomplete, the mission did provide a wealth of scientific data, including some brilliant pictures that will throw new light on man’s knowledge of moon. The spacecraft completed more than 3,400 revolutions around the moon during its 312-day stay in space and sent back large amount of data from sensors like the Terrain Mapping Camera, Hyper-spectral Imager and Moon Mineralogy Mapper.

Barely a week back, Chandrayaan-I and NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which is also orbiting the moon, carried out a joint experiment that can yield additional information on the possibility of ice or water near the north pole of moon.

Earlier in the year, in April, NASA’s payload on Chandrayaan-I, Mini-SAR — one of the 11 onboard the spacecraft that made it maximum number on any lunar mission in the history — had earlier sent some amazing photographs that would help in a better mapping of the moon’s surface.

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