New Delhi: Project Director of ISRO’s Chandrayaan 3 mission, P Veeramuthuvel laid out India’s future plans for lunar exploration at the International Astronautical Congress 2024 in Milan, Italy. ISRO will be returning to the Moon with the Chandrayaan 4 mission, an ambitious attempt to bring three kilograms of lunar samples back home, and the Chandrayaan 5/LUPEX mission, a collaboration with JAXA. The Gaganyaan programme itself is incredibly audacious and ambitious, but the incredible success of Chandrayaan 3 has forced ISRO to dream even bigger, for sustained human presence on the lunar surface.
| Years | Phase | Human Space Programme | Technology Missions | |
|
2024-2026
|
Gaganyaan Phase I
|
3 Uncrewed Missions | SPADEX circular docking | |
| 1 Crewed Mission | SPADEX 2 elliptical docking | |||
| 1 Crewed Mission | SPADEX 3 elliptical docking | |||
|
2027-3035
|
Gaganyaan Phase 2
|
Uncrewed ISS docking | Chandrayaan 4 | Sample Return |
|
Assembly of BAS
|
Chandrayaan 5 | Precision Landing | ||
| Chandrayaan 6 | 3D Printing | |||
|
Uncrewed BAS docking
|
Chandrayaan 7 | Nuclear Heat Source | ||
| 6 lunar relay/nav satellties | ||||
|
2036-2040
|
Final Phase
|
Shuttle service to BAS | Uncrewed Lunar Lander | |
| Crewed Lunar Orbiter | Uncrewed Lunar Lander 2 | |||
| Crewed Lunar Lander | Inflatable Structures | |||
|
2041-2047
|
Expansion Phase
|
Moon Base
|
Pressurised LTV | |
| Lunar Power Station | ||||
Veeramuthuvel said, “Going beyond 2035, the Bharatiya Antariksh Station will be ready, and that will be utilised heavily for further going to the Moon. We will have a crew orbiter around the Moon, before that we will have an uncrewed orbiter. Once it is demonstrated successfully, the final phase is another important target for which we are working. By 2040, we want to have our crewed lunar lander on the surface. Before that we will have an uncrewed lunar lander which will be identical to the crewed lander. Beyond that, it is again an expansion phase, where sustainability is very important.” ISRO plans to work closely with the Artemis programme in the future, as well as the planned Lunar Gateway.
Continuous human presence on the Moon
The Chandrayaan 6 mission will demonstrate the use of locally available resources for local additive manufacturing on the lunar surface, a crucial technology that can reduce the requirement for transporting cargo to the Moon, and allow visitors to quickly produce bricks, tools or spare parts as required, and then recycle them. ISRO is planning to set up power generation facilities on the Moon, and develop its own lunar terrain vehicle (LTV), for providing mobility across the surface. The Union Cabinet formally gave the greenlight for all the planned missions that allows ISRO to step towards achieving a crewed Moon landing by 2035. India hopes to construct and operate its own base on the Moon by 2047, the 100th anniversary of its Independence.
