The country’s first Moon mission Chandrayaan-1 that is scheduled to take off on October 22 will not mark the end of India’s interplanetary missions.
The much-awaited lunar odyssey will, in fact, kick off a slew of ambitious space programmes. At various ISRO establishments, scientists and engineers are working on space projects that will be a follow-up to Chandrayaan-1.
As a first step, ISRO and Russia’s Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos ) had, on November 14, 2007, agreed to team up on joint lunar research and exploration as part of Chandrayaan-2 mission.
This agreement, approved by the Union Cabinet a few days ago, involves an orbiting spacecraft and a rover that will land on the Moon. Chandrayaan-2, which is expected to lift off from Sriharikota some time between 2010 and 2012, will have a budget of Rs 425 crore.
The amount is slightly more than the current mission which is costing India Rs 386 crore. The spacecraft will be designed and developed by ISRO, while the rover will be a Russian product.
The rover will weigh between 30 and 100 kg, depending on the kind of landing - a hard or soft one - it will execute on the lunar surface . It will have a one-month life span and operate predominantly on solar power.
Keeping in mind the additional payloads in the spacecraft that could increase the launch weight, the rocket for the second mission will be the three-stage Geo-Synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV).
The current version of the rocket can carry payloads of up to two tonnes while the new version - GSLV Mk3 - can fly with payloads weighing four tonnes. The data from the rover will be transmitted to the orbiting spacecraft, which, in turn, will send it to the ground station at Byalalu near Bangalore.
As in the case of Chandrayaan-1, the data from its successor will also be sent to various scientific bodies - both in India and abroad - for analysis. Though Chandrayaan-2 will essentially be a joint Indo-Russian venture, the spacecraft may include instruments from other countries too.
For instance, NASA has shown interest in sending its instruments to the Moon through Chandrayaan-2 but details have yet to be worked out. The inclusion of a Russian rover in the second mission did cause some heartburn in India, especially among IIT-Kanpur students.
The institute had designed a rover and it was hoping that it would be a part of Chandrayaan-2. But following PM Manmohan Singh’s visit to Russia in November 2007, the decision swung in favour of the Russian rover.
After Chandrayaan-2 , the question being asked is whether there will be Chandrayaan-3 . According to ISRO officials, if the government agrees to have a third moon mission, it could be what is known as a sample return flight - samples from the Moon will be flown back to earth for analysis.
“But this is still at a planning stage and no decision has yet been taken,” said an ISRO official. After Chandrayaan-2, ISRO is planning a manned mission to the low Earth orbit at an altitude of 2,000 km.
The space programme could pave the way for a manned mission to the Moon in 2020.
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