India’s much-publicised moon mission came to an abrupt end on August 29 when we lost radio contact with Chandrayaan-1. After failing to re-establish contact for more than 24 hours, the Indian Space Research organisation terminated the mission. Yes, in principle, the mission could be said to have achieved most of its objectives; but it is equally true that its abrupt end has hurt ISRO’s pride.

This mission was sold, after all, as the single event since Pokharan-II that has brought the most glory to Indian science. (It is ironic that Pokharan’s legacy has come in the same week as the moon mission has had to wind up, well before its programmed life of two years.)

Actually the end is not as unexpected as it may seem; for the last month or so the writing has been on the wall, with the only question being when. This was because a month ago a vital sensor on the craft (the so-called star sensor) had gone bad. This sensor was meant to aid the precision of the craft’s orientation towards the moon.

ISRO had a “Plan-B”: scientists had then put a gyroscope on board along with an innovative antenna-pointing mechanism to keep the spacecraft functional. By that time it had completed 3,000 revolutions around the moon and had dispatched over 70,000 images of the surface. Overall, during its 10 months of existence, Chandrayaan-1 completed 312 days in orbit, making more than 3,400 orbits around the moon, and providing large amounts of data.

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