CRASH FEARS
India’s space agency loses contact with £114m spacecraft moments before historic Moon landing attempt
INDIA has tonight lost contact with its £114million spacecraft attempting to land on the Moon's South Pole.
The Indian Space Research Organisation was trying to put a probe on the Moon for the first time in the country's history.
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But moments before the Chandrayaan-2's Vikram craft was due to touch down the computer screen appeared to freeze.
But K Sivan, chairman of Isro, said: "Communications from lander to ground station was lost. The data is being analysed."
Before the mishap, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was at the space center in Bengaluru to witness the planned landing.
The space agency's chairman had earlier called Chandrayaan-2 the "most complex mission ever" undertaken by the space agency.
It comes just weeks after a botched first attempt.
The Chandrayaan-2 rocket lifted off from the Sriharikota space station on July 22.
And the probe was expected to touch down between 9pm and 10pm UK time on Friday - early morning on Saturday in India.
It was hoped the mission would be the most southerly landing of any lunar spacecraft to date.
Scientists had also planned a nearby back-up landing site at 67.7 degrees south latitude and 18.4 degrees west longitude if things went amiss.
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India botched its first attempt to launch a rocket to the Moon, just one week before Chandrayaan-2's successful take-off.
A technical snag is said to have grounded the rocket on July 14, minutes ahead of its flight to the Moon's South Pole.
Isro had said the spacecraft would "take a billion dreams to the Moon – now stronger than ever before".
Had it been successful, it would have marked the first time India has touched down on the Moon, making it the fourth nation to land there after the US, Russia and China.
An Israeli non-profit mission crashed into the Moon as it attempted to land on the lunar surface earlier this year.
The Chandrayaan-2 rocket - the word for "Moon craft" in Sanskrit - was designed for a soft landing on the lunar south pole.
Scientists had planned to deploy a rover from the unmanned spacecraft to explore water deposits confirmed by a previous Indian space mission.
The original countdown for the mission had to be stopped 56 minutes before the launch time.
Issues with a loss of pressure in a helium tank in the 640-tonne, 44m-tall rocket forced scientists to ground it.
Confidence was high prior to launch, with Vivek Singh, a spokesman Isro, saying: "The low-pressure issue got corrected. The mood is perfect.
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The Moon – our closest neighbour explained
Here's what you need to know...
- The Moon is a natural satellite – a space-faring body that orbits a planet
- It's Earth's only natural satellite, and is the fifth biggest in the Solar System
- The Moon measures 2,158 miles across, roughly 0.27 times the diameter of Earth
- Temperatures on the Moon range from minus 173 degrees Celcius to 260 degrees Celcius
- Experts assumed the Moon was another planet, until Nicolaus Copernicus outlined his theory about our Solar System in 1543
- It was eventually assigned to a "class" after Galileo discovered four moons orbiting Jupiter in 1610
- The Moon is believed to have formed around 4.51billion years ago
- The strength of its gravitational field is about a sixth of Earth's gravity
- Earth and the Moon have "synchronous rotation", which means we always see the same side of the Moon – hence the phrase "dark side of the Moon"
- The Moon's surface is actually dark, but appears bright in the sky due to its reflective ground
- During a solar eclipse, the Moon covers the Sun almost completely. Both objects appear a similar size in the sky because the Sun is both 400 times larger and farther
- The first spacecraft to reach the Moon was in 1959, as part of the Soviet Union's Lunar program
- The first manned orbital mission was Nasa's Apollo 8 in 1968
- And the first manned lunar landing was in 1969, as part of the Apollo 11 mission
"You know in space missions, you can’t go with 99 per cent confidence," he added.
"You should have 100 per cent confidence."
The South Pole is a current target for exploration for lots of space agencies, including Nasa, because scientists have observed evidence of lots of ice in the craters there.
The presence of ice means that Moon water could potentially be used as a resource for future missions.
Moon water could help astronauts explore the Moon for longer or even stay there.
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In other news, Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins slammed Nasa's plot to return to Moon – says ‘aim for Mars instead’.
Hilarious Nasa Moon landing footage reveals Apollo astronauts falling over again and again in lunar gravity.
And, here are some fascinating facts that you didn’t know about the 1969 Moon Landing mission.
Do you think humans will ever holiday to the Moon? Let us know in the comments!
India launches Chandrayaan-2 rocket in 'world first' mission to Moon’s mysterious South Pole
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