'There was a brief mention about the early termination of the mission at the meeting, but no detailed discussion was held, as an analysis committee has been set up to probe into the abrupt snapping of radio contact with the spacecraft with the ground station,' a scientist said on the condition of anonymity.

Chandrayaan was launched Oct 22, 2008 from spaceport Sriharikota, about 90 km northeast of Chennai.

The ESA's three payloads were the imaging x-ray spectrometer (C1XS), the smart infrared spectrometer (SIR-2) and sub-kiloelectronvolt (keV) atom reflecting analyzer (SARA).

Similarly, the US payloads were the 6.5 kg mini synthetic aperture radar (MiniSAR) and the moon mineralogy mapper (M3).

The lone Bulgarian payload was the radiation dose monitor (RADOM).

The five Indian payloads were the terrain mapping camera (TMC), the hyper spectral imager (HySI), the lunar laser ranging instrument (LLRI), the high energy x-ray spectrometer (HEX) and the moon impact probe (MIP).

The technology objectives of the mission were to fly the spacecraft 400,000 km to the moon, inserting it into the lunar orbit and placing the Indian tricolour on the lunar surface.

The scientific objectives were chemical and mineralogical mapping of the lunar surface using sophisticated sensors, conducting high-resolution remote-sensing of the moon in visible, near infrared, low-energy and high-energy x-ray regions and three dimensional atlas of the near and far sides of the moon.