Chennai: The government has granted permission to the Chandrayaan-5 mission, ISRO chairman V Narayanan said in Chennai on Sunday.
“Many projects are there. Chandrayaan-4 has to land and collect samples. Chandrayaan-5 got approval three days ago and will have a 350 kg rover. Japan and India have collaborated to work on the mission,” he said.
Chandrayaan-5 will be a capability-building exercise towards India’s ultimate goal to send an astronaut to the Moon by 2040. He also Narayanan also said that the ISRO has been tasked with the responsibility of planning for Indian Space Station by 2035.
While Chandrayaan-3 landed a rover safely on the Moon, Chandrayaan-4 will be about sending a rover to collect samples and then bringing it back to Earth successfully. The Chandrayaan-5/LuPEX mission will be about landing a heavier rover on the Moon. This will be the first step towards an Indian setting foot on the Moon.
“The Bharatiya Antriksh Station should be ready by 2035. The Government also wants us to plan for a return journey to the Moon by Indian astronauts in an Indian rocket.
Praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s hard work and vision and thanking all his friends for standing with him, Narayanan said: “We have designed and launched 131 satellites. We have given them to SAARC countries.. we have achieved a feat that no other country has achieved in 34 days. There has been tremendous development in the last ten years. We have successfully sent 433 satellites from our Indian soil, achieving a record 90 percent success rate,” the ISRO chief said.
The ISRO chairman went on to speak about how the Organisation launched 393 foreign satellites and three Indian customer satellites, on a commercial basis, over the last 10 years. These were sent to space on-board ISRO’s PSLV, LVM3 and SSLV launch vehicles. India also launched satellites for 34 countries so far. These countries include the US, UK, Singapore, Canada and Israel.
