{"id":67010,"date":"2026-10-21T21:41:37","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T21:41:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/?guid=20f680ff6b20d4d2420539b0143e589a"},"modified":"2026-10-22T21:02:23","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T21:02:23","slug":"on-this-day-in-space-oct-21-2008-india-launches-its-1st-mission-to-the-moon-with-chandrayaan-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/2026\/10\/21\/on-this-day-in-space-oct-21-2008-india-launches-its-1st-mission-to-the-moon-with-chandrayaan-1\/","title":{"rendered":"On this day in space! Oct. 21, 2008: India launches its 1st mission to the moon with Chandrayaan-1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n                            \n                            <article>\n                                <iframe src=\"https:\/\/content.jwplatform.com\/players\/gQI5xkTO.html\" id=\"gQI5xkTO\" title=\"OTD in Space - Oct. 21: India Launches 1st Moon Mission\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"auto\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><p>On Oct. 21, 2008, the Indian Space Research Organization launched its first mission to the moon. The mission was named Chandrayaan-1, and it consisted of both an orbiter and an impactor.<\/p><p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.space.com\/40114-chandrayaan-1.html\" ><u>Chandrayaan-1<\/u><\/a> launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Center on an Indian rocket called the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, or PSLV-XL. (Launch occurred at 8:52 p.m. EDT, though it was about 6:22 a.m. local time at the launch site on Oct. 22.)  <\/p><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/6082-indian-moon-probe-lunar-orbit.html\"><u>It arrived in lunar orbit<\/u><\/a> about three weeks later and dropped off the Moon Impact Probe, which crashed into <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/55-earths-moon-formation-composition-and-orbit.html\"><u>the moon<\/u><\/a> on Nov. 14. The rest of the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft stayed in orbit, where it collected and transmitted data from the moon to Earth for about a year. The mission ended abruptly 14 months ahead of its planned end date when scientists <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/7203-indian-moon-orbiter-fails-abruptly.html\"><u>lost contact with the probe<\/u><\/a>.<\/p><figure class=\"van-image-figure  inline-layout\" data-bordeaux-image-check ><div class='image-full-width-wrapper'><div class='image-widthsetter' style=\"max-width:2500px;\"><p class=\"vanilla-image-block\" style=\"padding-top:56.24%;\"><img id=\"XYSXm8VMcSGEYE32UYqTAA\" name=\"chandrayaan-1 launch.jpg\" alt=\"An Indian PSLV rocket launches the Chandrayaan-1 moon mission on Oct. 21, 2008 EDT (Oct. 22 local time in India).\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/XYSXm8VMcSGEYE32UYqTAA-1920-80.jpg\" mos=\"\" align=\"middle\" fullscreen=\"\" width=\"2500\" height=\"1406\" attribution=\"\" endorsement=\"\" class=\"inline\"><\/p><\/div><\/div><figcaption itemprop=\"caption description\" class=\" inline-layout\"><span class=\"caption-text\">An Indian PSLV rocket launches the Chandrayaan-1 moon mission on Oct. 21, 2008 EDT (Oct. 22 local time in India). <\/span><span class=\"credit\" itemprop=\"copyrightHolder\">(Image credit: ISRO)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure><h2 id=\"why-it-mattered\">Why it mattered<\/h2><p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/indian-space-research-organization.html\"><u>Indian Space Research Organisation<\/u><\/a>, or ISRO, had a lot riding on the success of Chandrayaan-1 moon mission, which marked the first-ever deep space mission by the Indian space agency. It was also the first mission to the moon for India, a country that hopes to launch its own crewed spacecraft and build a space station. <\/p><p>Chandrayaan-1 did more than just demonstrate that India's space program was capable of launching missions to the moon; it also returned some amazing science results, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/41554-water-ice-moon-surface-confirmed.html\"><u>like evidence of water ice on the moon<\/u><\/a>.<\/p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/content.jwplatform.com\/players\/yGwpOjSz.html\" id=\"yGwpOjSz\" title=\"India's Moon Mission\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"auto\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><p>\"In September 2009, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/7328-official-water-moon.html\"><u>scientists published results of data<\/u> <\/a>collected by the American M3 instrument which had detected absorption features on the polar regions of the surface of the Moon usually linked to hydroxyl- and\/ or water-bearing molecules,\" NASA said <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/mission\/chandrayaan-1\/\" ><u>in a mission overview<\/u><\/a>. <\/p><p>The spacecraft carried 11 instruments to study the moon, five of them built by ISRO. The rest were experiments for the European Space Agnecy and NASA. <\/p><p>\"In addition to the five Indian instruments, the spacecraft carried scientific equipment from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, and Bulgaria,\" NASA said.<\/p><p>It took until Nov. 8, 2008 for Chandrayaan-1 to enter lunar orbit, where it stayed until contact was lost in August 2009, most likely due to a power supply failure caused by overheating. <\/p><p>\"This was short of the spacecraft\u2019s planned two-year lifetime, although ISRO noted that at least 95% of its mission objectives had been accomplished by then,\" NASA wrote.<\/p><figure class=\"van-image-figure  inline-layout\" data-bordeaux-image-check ><div class='image-full-width-wrapper'><div class='image-widthsetter' style=\"max-width:1686px;\"><p class=\"vanilla-image-block\" style=\"padding-top:79.95%;\"><img id=\"kwpdC2dxUdfd6fvMEfBZvN\" name=\"moon-water-chandrayaan-1.jpg\" alt=\"NASA's Mini-SAR instrument, which flew aboard India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, found more than 40 small craters with water ice.\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/kwpdC2dxUdfd6fvMEfBZvN-1920-80.jpg\" mos=\"\" align=\"middle\" fullscreen=\"\" width=\"1686\" height=\"1348\" attribution=\"\" endorsement=\"\" class=\"inline\"><\/p><\/div><\/div><figcaption itemprop=\"caption description\" class=\" inline-layout\"><span class=\"caption-text\">NASA's Mini-SAR instrument, which flew aboard India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, found more than 40 small craters with water ice. The craters range in size from 1 to 9 miles (2 to 15 km) in diameter.  <\/span><span class=\"credit\" itemprop=\"copyrightHolder\">(Image credit: NASA)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure><p>India did not stop at the moon with Chandrayaan-1. In 2019, the country launched the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/40136-chandrayaan-2.html\"><u>Chandrayaan-2<\/u><\/a> orbiter, which carried the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover. Chandrayaan-2 reached lunar orbit successfully, but the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/india-moon-lander-found-by-chandrayaan-2-orbiter.html\" ><u>Vikram landing failed<\/u><\/a>.<\/p><p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/chandrayaan-3-indian-moon-mission-rover\"><u>Chandrayaan-3 misson<\/u><\/a> followed in 2023, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/india-chandrayaan-3-moon-landing-success\" ><u>which successfully landed a new Vikram lander and Pragyan rover<\/u><\/a> near the moon's south pole. India plans to launch the Chandryaan-4 mission to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/the-universe\/moon\/india-targets-2028-for-chandrayaan-4-sample-return-mission-to-moons-south-pole\"><u>return moon samples to Earth in 2028<\/u><\/a>.<\/p><p>Want more space history? Check out our<a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/tag\/on-this-day-in-space\"><u> <\/u><u><strong>full On This Day In Space Story archive<\/strong><\/u><\/a> and watch our<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLCE-SVF9BSTdloyi4P9TmQVTp9Q2zTb27\" > <u><strong>On This Day In Space videos on YouTube<\/strong><\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n                                                            <\/article>\n                            \n                        ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1, 2008, the Indian Space Research Organization launched its first mission to the moon. Here&#8217;s why it mattered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":927,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1263],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space-exploration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67010"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67010"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67115,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67010\/revisions\/67115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}