Chandrayaan-1, which was India’s first unmanned mission to the moon, has finally been found again — long after it was given up for lost. The news comes from NASA, which claims that it has discovered the satellite, which seem to have inherited ISRO’s tenacity and is still orbiting the moon.
You probably remember Chandrayaan-1 as one of India’s most ambitious missions at the time. The mission, which saw ISRO propelled into an elite club of space research organizations, was assigned a two-year mission and was expected to map the surface of the moon and hunt for precious resources. However, the $79 million satellite lost contact with HQ a year after launch — though it was supposed to stay up for at least a couple of years.
Now though, ISRO scientists are claiming that the spacecraft is still making its merry way around the moon, almost 200 KMs above the lunar surface. The task was none too easy considering that “the last contact with the spacecraft was on August 29, 2009.” The difficulties were further compounded by the fact that Chandrayaan-1 is kind of small by the perspective of satellites — somewhere around the size of a Maruti 800 car.
The satellite was discovered using an inter-planetary radar. The actual purpose of the radar is to help discover asteroids and the like, however, it found itself just as capable of discovering a runaway satellite. Meanwhile, it was a stroke of luck that the satellite is still flying. The moon is decidedly unhealthy for runaway satellites and it has regions of higher than average gravitational pool, that can cause the latter to crash into the surface of the celestial body.
What’s more, ISRO had even predicted that the lunar orbiter would face a decay of orbit and crash into earth’s nearest neighbor. However, it seems like Chandrayaan-1 is holding up at the moment. That does not mean that it is sending any useful data though, those capabilities are already toast. Meanwhile, ISRO is sending already planning to send Chandrayaan-2, its second mission to the moon, early next year.
