India has officially ended its mission to locate evidence of water and ice on the moon after it has completely lost contact with its moon orbiter satellite, according to an official report Monday.
The Indian Space Research Organization reports that they currently have no means of reestablishing contact with their moon satellite, Chandrayaan-I. A spokesman says that without contact, the unmanned craft will continue to orbit the moon incessantly for about a thousand more days before it plummets to the moon’s surface.
Chandrayaan-I was tasked with taking high-resolution images of the moon’s surface as it orbits the moon, mapping the lunar surface and looking for evidence of the prior existence of ice or water. Expectancies were high, especially since the craft was also tasked of helping map the dark side of the moon, which cannot be seen on Earth anywhere during its revolution around the sun.
Despite Chandrayaan-I not meeting its expected two-year life expectancy, researchers say that they have been satisfied with the large amount of data that the satellite was able to retrieve, completing approximately 3,400 orbits around the moon during the 312 days that it had been operational.
Earlier, the Indian government also raised their space research funding from an annual $700 million to approximately $1 billion, which raised eyebrows among the local masses where a good percentage of the population barely had enough to live and eat comfortably.
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