site.btaOctober 22, 2008: Bulgaria-Made RADOM Radiation Spectrometer Goes to Space onboard India's Chandrayaan-1

On October 22, 2008, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) President Nikola Subotibov told a news conference that scientists from the Solar-Earth Influence Laboratory with BAS (today's Space Research and Technology Institute) had developed a device for India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. India's first unmanned mission to the moon, titled Chandrayaan-1, was launched successfully earlier that day with eleven payloads onboard, including RADOM: a 256 channel absorbed space radiation spectrometer internationally known as Liulin. Its size was 110 by 40 by 20 mm, and it weighed 98 grammes. 

During Chandrayaan-1's mission, Liulin was set to measure the quantitative and qualitative fluctuations of the galaxy radiation fields and sun rays at 100 km above the moon surface. The data from the Bulgarian device was to be used to estimate radiation risks for future missions.

Bulgaria's Liulin was selected for the Indian mission in competition with  participants from 32 countries. The cost of the device was BGN 60,000.

Of the remaining ten payloads on Chandrayaan-1, five were produced in India, two in the USA, and one each in Germany, the UK, and Sweden each. 

Chandrayaan-1's two-year mission ended prematurely when contact with the spacecraft was lost on August 28, 2009, shows information on NASA's website. However, at least 95% of its mission objectives had been accomplished by then. The most likely cause of the end of the mission was the failure of the power supply due to overheating.