Chandrayaan 4 mission ‘extremely challenging’ – ISRO chief Somnath explains how

Speaking at the National Space Science Symposium last week, Somnath said, “…many things come to our mind whether we should repeat such a mission or bring back samples or whether we will do a kind of mission different from others. This The question is still under debate and discussion.”

Also read: Chandrayaan 3: What is India’s Moon Mission? why is it important?

Sonmath explains how the next lunar mission will be more challenging chandrayaan and 3:

1. Somnath said that many launchers are needed for this mission. However, the Chandrayaan 3 mission was launched in a single stage. The mission is to perform return and re-entry to Earth for sample delivery.

2. He also said the team must have “docking capability at Earth orbit or Moon orbit…A failure in the docking mission could lead to mission failure.”

Also read: India’s Chandrayaan-2 guides Japan’s SLIM mission to moon landing

3. “To keep the samples very safe, we need to have the robotic capability to operate a drill, pick a sample and load it into compartments,” Somnath said. One objective of the mission is to demonstrate the transfer of samples from one module to another.

4. The ISRO chief also talked about technical capabilities. “We started first with remote sensing, then we looked at in-situ observations. The third phase is to bring (lunar) samples back to Earth for more laboratory observations and analysis,” Somnath said.

The next lunar mission has not been finalized yet

The ISRO chief said that currently, scientists are working on a concept by which India will be able to go to the Moon, collect samples of different nature, bring them back to Earth and hand them over for further study.

“The surrounding architecture and the right knowledge and skills of the rocket people as well as the satellite people have been worked out. The scientific goals now have to be differentiated,” he said.

He further informed that the mission is to be completed in 2027. “We have to work together to ensure that another Chandrayaan mission takes place in such an architecture,” he said.

Chandrayaan 3 vs Chandrayaan 4:

According to the ISRO chief’s presentation, the upcoming lunar mission will include a PSLV and an LVM3 as launch vehicle options. The mission will consist of five spacecraft modules – Re-Entry Module (RM), Transfer Module (TM), Ascender Module (AM), Descender Module (DM) and Propulsion Module (PM).

However, the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft consisted of three main components – lander module, rover and propulsion module.

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India created history with the successful launch of Chandrayaan-3 mission in 2023. The Lander Module (LM) of ISRO’s third lunar mission Chandrayaan-3, launched on July 14, successfully landed on the Moon’s south pole on August 23.

The mission conducted several in-situ scientific experiments on the lunar surface. On August 30, the Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscope instrument mounted on Chandrayaan-3’s ‘Pragyan’ rover ‘clearly confirmed’ the presence of sulfur in the lunar surface near the south pole. Other elements such as aluminum (Al), calcium (Ca), iron (Fe), chromium (Cr), titanium (Ti), manganese (Mn), silicon (Si), and oxygen (O) are also detected.

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Published: 06 March 2024, 05:34 PM IST