An Indian GSLV F06 rocket exploded moments after launch on Saturday, December 25. Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) scientists poured over the flight data trying to figure out what caused a failure in the communication system that was supposed to carry commands to the rocket. The rocket veered off course within 47 seconds of launch and caught fire within another 16 seconds at which time a self-destruct command was successfully relayed to the rocket. The rocket had a communications satellite payload.
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Deep Impact passed within 700 km (435 miles) of Comet Hartley 2 on November 4, returning pictures of the comet’s head which show the object to be shaped like a bowling pin. Comet Hartley 2 is about 1.6 km (1 mile) long. Deep Impact took several thousand images during its fly-by. This is the second cometary fly-by for Deep Impact, which had a fly-by and dropped an impactor on Comet Tempel 1 in 2005.
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India has ended its first unmanned lunar mission after attempting to regain contact with its lost spacecraft. India lost contact with Chandrayaan-I on August 29 and has determined that there is no way to reestablish communications, although India has requested help from both the United States and Russia in locating the missing craft. According to Indian sources, the satellite, which is already in lunar orbit, has completed most of its scientific missions and has already completed 3400 orbits.
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