NEW DELHI—India may have failed at its attempt to land a probe on the moon, losing communication with the lunar lander just as it was about to touch down.

Millions in the country of more than 1.3 billion people watched in the wee hours of India’s Saturday morning as the Chandrayaan-2 moon mission hurtled toward its destination. Minutes away from the scheduled landing, the screen at the Indian Space Research Organization’s monitoring center in the southern city of Bangalore showed the lander diverging from its expected path.

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