The first encounter was when it was put in the 100 km orbit. The spacecraft reached a stage of thermal runaway about a month after it was inserted into the lunar orbit. The entire spacecraft would have been baked. We would have lost it,' Nair recalled.

Nair admitted that the mission had reached a stage where many of the electronics have failed and some of the power supply instruments have malfunctioned.

'We were, however, able to energise the redundant units and keep them alive,' he added.

The mooncraft has orbited around the moon 3,000 times during the last eight months and its high-resolution cameras relayed about 70,000 digital images of the lunar surface, providing breathtaking views of mountains and craters, including those in the permanently shadowed area of the moon's polar region.

'The spacecraft is also collecting valuable data pertaining to the chemical and mineral content of the moon, the earth's only natural satellite,' the space agency said in a statement later.

Scientists at the satellite control centre of the ISRO telemetry, tracking and command network (ISTRAC), raised the spacecraft's circular orbit May 19 to 200 km away from the lunar surface to reduce the resolution of the imagery but widen the swath for gathering good quality data.

Of the 11 scientific payloads, five are Indian. Of the other six, three are from the European Space Agency (ESA), two from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the US and one from Bulgaria.

The scientific objectives of the spacecraft are remote sensing of the moon in visible, near infrared, low energy x-ray and high-energy x-ray regions.

During the two-year expedition, some of the payloads will prepare a three-dimensional atlas of both the near and far side of the moon, with a high spatial and altitude resolution of 5-10 metres.

Referring to the problems encountered by the mission after its launch, Nair said space missions were very, very complex and there were instances of problems onboard.