Most engineering goals have been fulfilled, but pious promises to deliver "good science" from the mission are still to be met.
This in itself was a big achievement since neither Russia nor 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 only other country to have managed a similar maiden feat was China - its mission Chang'e-1 in 2007 lasted 16 months in space,
The Indian mission survived for about 10 months in space; most other missions to the Moon have been much more short-lived.
Despite being dubbed by Isro as an "engineering success", the mission had a rough ride around the Moon.
- A fuel leak from the rocket almost aborted its lift-off.
- Within days of reaching the Moon, a power system failed, and a back-up system had to be activated.
- the spacecraft started overheating due to the intense heat on the Moon.
- Scientists say it was deft mission management that saved it from a total burnout.
- The mission the spacecraft lost its fine guidance system when the onboard "star sensor" packed up in the intense radiation around the Moon.
- The space agency lost all contact with Chandrayaan after a catastrophic failure - possibly in its power supply system.
SUCCESS
- Every time an instrument on this 1,380kg robot gave way, mission controllers at Isro found an innovative solution to keep the mission alive.
- 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's surface.
- No nation to date had succeeded in both a lunar orbiter and an impactor at the first attempt.
- Probe that crash-landed on the Moon also permanently placed India's flag on the lunar surface.
- India became the fourth space bloc to have done this after Russia, America and the European Space Agency.
- There are many other firsts to this mission.
- In a highly un-Indian trait, the Indian space agency delivered the Moon mission with no cost or time overrun at $100m and within eight years of it first being suggested.
- The spacecraft carried 11 different sophisticated instruments, one of the largest suites of experiments ever carried to the Moon.
- The objective was to remotely map the resources of the Moon, prepare a three-dimensional atlas of it and look for water.
- All instruments worked for about 10 months in the hostile lunar environment.
- The chief scientist for Space Sciences at Esa, calls the Indian mission "the first multi-continent, multi-country lunar mission ever to be undertaken".
- A little known fact is that India did not charge any money to fly these instruments 400,000km away: all got a free ride to the Moon, merely in exchange for sharing the scientific data.
- Search for water Chandrayaan-1 was also the first and the most detailed search for water on the Moon using radars - to date, water has never been found.
- A miniature American radar onboard the Chandrayaan peered into the Moon's deepest craters searching for "water ice".
- The termination of the Moon mission will, however, not affect India's plans in space.
refence : Economic Times - Srinivas Laxman - Aug 31, 2009
