India loses contact with satellite orbiting moon

India’s national space agency said communication with the country’s satellite orbiting the moon snapped Saturday and that its scientists were no longer controlling the spacecraft.

Radio contact with the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft was abruptly lost early Saturday, the Indian Space Research Organization said.

The spacecraft had completed 312 days in orbit and orbited the moon more than 3,400 times before the agency’s monitoring unit near Bangalore stopped receiving data.

The space agency had received a large volume of data from the spacecraft -- which is slotted in an automatic orbit of the moon, he said.

The launch of Chandrayaan-1 in October 2008 put India in an elite club of countries with moon missions. Other countries with similar satellites are the U.S., Russia, Japan and China.