Context:
Recently, the Central government has approved the Chandrayaan-5 mission/Lupex to study the Moon.
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- Chandrayaan-5 is a joint mission between India’s ISRO and Japan’s JAXA to explore the Moon’s south polar region, focusing on water resources and surface characteristics.
- JAXA will be in charge of the lunar rover and ISRO will be responsible for the lander that will carry the rover, observation instruments from NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) will also be mounted on the rover.
- Chandrayaan-5 will have a 250 kg rover.
- The Chandrayaan-5/ Lunar Polar Exploration Mission (LUPEX) mission is being planned to demonstrate the higher capacity lander, which is an important element for future landing missions, including human landings on the lunar surface.
- India has also announced that it will have its own Space Station, the “Bharatiya Antriksh Station,” by 2035.
Chandrayaan Missions
- ISRO has successfully executed three Chandrayaan missions.
- A series of Chandrayaan missions are planned to build capability towards achieving the goal of an Indian landing on the Moon by 2040.
- Chandrayaan-1 successfully launched in 2008 took chemical, mineralogical and photo-geologic mapping of the Moon.
- The Chandrayaan-2 mission (2019) was 98 per cent successful but just two per cent of the Mission could not be achieved in the final stages.
- Chandrayaan-3: LVM3-M4 successfully launched the Chandrayaan-3 Spacecraft on 14th July, 2023. Successfully accomplished safe & soft-landing of Vikram Lander at ‘Shiv Shakti’ point (Statio Shiv Shakti) & deployment of Pragyaan Rover on the lunar surface on August 23, 2023
- The Chandrayaan-4 mission, is expected to be launched in 2027 and it will demonstrate the capability of landing on the Moon and safe return to Earth including technologies for sample collection.