India’s space agency on Saturday lost communication with its spacecraft just before it was due to land near the South Pole of the Moon, in a blow to the nation’s lunar ambitions. India had hoped to become just the fourth country — after the United States, Russia and China — to successfully land on the Moon. The country also aimed to be the first to land in the Southern Polar region, an area the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said was “completely unexplored”.
