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The Chandrayaan-3 mission has been generating a lot of discussion around India’s space programme, and Moon missions in general. Here are a few things you may not be aware of.
Chandrayaan-1, India’s first mission to the Moon in 2008, was just an Orbiter. When the spacecraft was being assembled, President A P J Abdul Kalam visited the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) office. According to an account by former ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair, Kalam asked scientists what evidence Chandrayaan-1 would have to show it had been to the Moon.
When the scientists said it would have pictures of the lunar surface, Kalam apparently shook his head and said that would not be enough. He then suggested that the spacecraft carry an instrument that could be made to fall on the Moon’s surface.
ISRO heeded Kalam’s advice and made design changes to accommodate a new instrument. This Moon Impact Probe hit the lunar surface, and became the first Indian object on the Moon.
Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft crashed on the lunar surface on Saturday. An earlier version of the same lander was supposed to go on India’s Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft, but did not.
The Chandrayaan-2 mission, which had a lander and a rover, was originally supposed to go in the 2011-12 time frame. At that time, India had not developed its own lander and rover. The original Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft was supposed to be a joint mission with Russia. India was supposed to provide the rocket and Orbiter, while the lander and rover would have come from Russia.
The kind of lander and rover that Russia was developing for Chandrayaan-2, however, showed problems on a different mission, forcing Russia’s space agency Roscosmos to make design changes. The new design, however, was larger and could not be accommodated on the Indian rocket.
Russia eventually pulled out of the collaboration, and ISRO went in for indigenous development of the lander and rover. That took time, and Chandrayaan-2 could fly only in 2019.
Unlike some countries that have a whole series of lunar missions planned, India has not yet announced follow-up missions to Chandrayaan-3. While there would obviously be a Chandrayaan-4, 5, 6 or more, India will, before those, send another Moon mission in collaboration with Japan. It is called LUPEX. The mission is likely to be launched in the 2024-25 timeframe.
The European Space Agency was an important partner for Roscosmos, not just on Luna-25 but also on the Luna-26 and Luna-27 missions, planned for later this decade. The ESA was putting a navigation camera and an optical navigation system on Luna-25. More robotic equipment was planned to be integrated into Luna-26 and Luna-27. Similar cooperation was going on for a Russian Mars mission as well.
However, all that was suspended by the European agency in April last year, after Russian forces invaded Ukraine. The science and technology objectives that Europe planned to fulfill through these missions will now be fulfilled through collaboration with NASA.
Japan, Israel landing bids were by private companies
Over the last decade, five countries have attempted to land on the Moon — China, Israel, India, Japan, and Russia. Only China has succeeded so far. The Moon missions from Israel and Japan, Beresheet and Hakuto-R respectively, were sent by private companies. Till date, these remain the only attempts by private space agencies to land on the Moon.
Later this month, Japan’s space agency JAXA is readying to send its first Moon landing mission. It is called SLIM, or Smart Lander for Investigating Moon.
