Chandrayaan-I Aborted

On Aug 29th, ISRO's press release made public the news on Chandrayaan-I
Chandrayaan-I spacecraft looses radio contact

• Radio contact with Chandrayaan-I spacecraft was abruptly lost at 0130 Hrs (IST) on August 29, 2009. Deep Space Network at Byalalu near Bangalore received the data from Chandrayaan-I during the previous orbit upto 0025 Hrs (IST).

The first indication came with an innocuous sounding statement from ISRO on May 20th.
The Orbit of Chandrayaan-1 Raised

• After the successful completion of all the major mission objectives, the orbit of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, which was at a height of 100 km from the lunar surface since November 2008, has now been raised to 200 km. The orbit raising manoeuvres were carried out between 0900 and 1000 hrs IST on May 19, 2009. The spacecraft in this higher altitude will enable further studies on orbit perturbations, gravitational field variation of the Moon and also enable imaging lunar surface with a wider swath.

In an interview published on July 17th, ISRO Chief Madhavan Nair provided more information on issues faced as well as workarounds found. It is worth noting that going into the mission, India had very limited concrete knowledge on alien environment on moon. Chandrayaan-I is the first step in getting to know the moon and deal with unpredictables that will have to be learnt the hard way.

Chandrayaan's sensors fail; Craft's life may be reduced

• The ISRO chief said the mission has reached a stage where many of the electronics have failed and indeed some of the power supply instruments have malfunctioned.
• "But fortunately, we were able to energise the redundant units and keep them alive all this time. This has been going on for quite sometime. Unfortunately, during the last month we have lost one vital sensor," he said.
• "But to the credit of the ISRO scientific team, they have worked out a very innovative way of overcoming the problem," the ISRO chief said, but added that if some more failures happen, "then we will have problems".

NDTV's science writer Pallava Bagla writes on Aug 31st in BBC,
India moon mission a mixed success

• 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 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.
• No nation to date had succeeded in both a lunar orbiter and an impactor at the first attempt. 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.

Lets take this for what it is.. the first experiment, which met most of the ambitious goals.

However, hope ISRO learns the value of good PR and be more cautious in setting expectations next time.

Snippet from a previous post. Indian Space and new frontiers

• Right from when India is weeks away from reaching moon's orbit, ISRO’s has provided continuous updates on health and orbital information of Chandrayaan-I. Some preliminary images and hundreds of frames have subsequently been shared in the open web. This demonstrates tremendous confidence, maybe over-confidence even, of ISRO. ISRO definitely deserves pat on the back entering the big-boy's club, brimming with confidence.