NASA found the 8-year lost spacecraft on the Moon's orbit

The US Aerospace Agency (NASA) identified the locations of two unmanned spacecraft orbiting the Moon, including India's Chandrayaan-1, which has disappeared since 2009.

NASA scientists use the new ground-based radar to detect the position of two spacecraft, an active ship and a "hibernated" ship, long lost on the Moon's orbit, CNN on 10/10 3 coverage.

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO).

"We can detect NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and Indian Space Research Agency Chandrayaan-1 on the Moon orbit with ground-based radars , " said Marina Brozovic, a radar expert. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said. "Finding the LRO is relatively easy after we work with the positioning experts of the mission and have accurate data on its orbit of rotation."

Chandrayaan-1 was harder to find because the last contact with the ship was August 2009. The Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft is also quite small, only half of a smart car.

While the interplanetary radar was used to observe small meteorites a few million kilometers from Earth, the researchers were unsure whether it could detect smaller objects at a distance to the Moon. These objects are particularly difficult to locate because the Moon has many areas with a large gravitational force that can significantly offset the orbit of the spacecraft.

New technology is important for future moon missions. Optical telescopes cannot search for small objects due to the light around the Moon.