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This is an archive article published on August 24, 2024

ISRO: Chandrayaan-4 design final, samples from Moon by 2027

The Chandrayaan-4 spacecraft will have five separate modules, officials said. The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft, which made a historic landing near the South Pole of the Moon, had three modules — the propulsion module (or the engine), a lander and a rover.

ISRO, ISRO mission Chandrayaan, Chandrayaan-4 design final, President Droupadi Murmu, ISRO Chairman S Somanath, National Space Day event, mission Moon, Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft, Indian express newsPresident Droupadi Murmu with ISRO Chairman S Somanath at the National Space Day event, Friday. (ANI Photo)

The designs of India’s next mission to the Moon, Chandrayaan-4 — which will bring rock and soil samples back to the Earth — has been finalised, and will most likely happen in 2027, said ISRO chairman S Somanath said on Friday on the occasion of National Space Day.

The Chandrayaan-4 spacecraft will have five separate modules, officials said. The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft, which made a historic landing near the South Pole of the Moon, had three modules — the propulsion module (or the engine), a lander and a rover.

The Chandrayaan-4 sample return mission would be a complex mission involving several stages. After getting into lunar orbit, two of the modules will detach from the main spacecraft and make a landing on the Moon. They will help each other in collecting samples from the lunar surface. One of the modules will launch itself from the Moon’s surface and travel back to the main spacecraft in the lunar orbit. The samples will be transferred, and then flown back to an Earth re-entry vehicle that will be launched separately from the ground. The samples will be transferred again, and it is this re-entry vehicle that will bring them back to the Earth.

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Somanath said designs for this mission have been finalised, and the project was awaiting the final government approval. ISRO has also finalised designs for the next Moon mission, Chandrayaan-5, but did not specify the objective or timeline of the mission, he said.

Chandrayaan-4 would involve docking of space modules twice during the Mission — when the modules fly back from the Moon to unite with the main spacecraft, and when the samples are transferred to the re-entry vehicle. ISRO has never docked spacecraft earlier. This capability will be demonstrated for the first time later this year, with the Spadex mission. Docking is a process where two spacecraft moving at extremely high speeds are aligned in a precise orbit and joined together.

‘will ensure debris-

New Delhi: On the occasion of National Space Day on Friday, President Droupadi Murmu appreciated India for its commitment to conduct debris-free space missions by 2030. Speaking at the celebration of the maiden National Space Day celebrations to mark the first anniversary of the landing of India’s Chandrayaan-3 project, Murmu said that research conducted to solve issues during space exploration accelerates the development of Science and improves human life, with sectors like health, transportation, security, energy, environment and information technology — all benefiting from it. “I’m happy that India is moving forward to make all its space missions debris free by 2030,” Murmu said.

According to senior ISRO scientists, two key capabilities required for the Chandrayaan-4 success had been demonstrated during the Chandrayaan-3 mission. “The hop experiment that was performed on the last day of Chandrayaan-3 mission (lander of Chandrayaan-3 was made to jump about 40 cm from the lunar surface and land 30-40 cm away) was done to understand whether we can lift off from the lunar soil. There were concerns about the legs of the lander getting deep inside the lunar surface, which would have made the ‘hop’ difficult to execute. But Chandrayaan-3 did that exceedingly well. There were no problems, and the results were according to our expectations,” one of the scientists said.

“The other capability was to get the spacecraft from the orbit of the Moon to the Earth’s. The Chandrayaan-3 propulsion module, which had carried the lander-rover to the Moon, was brought back to the Earth’s orbit to demonstrate this,” the scientist added.

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While instruments from the Chandrayaan-3 studied soil and rock on the Moon’s surface, bringing back samples will allow scientists to study the samples with more complex and sensitive instruments. The senior scientist further said that all the samples brought back by the mission will be shared across different scientific laboratories in the country.

Anonna Dutt is a Principal Correspondent who writes primarily on health at the Indian Express. She reports on myriad topics ranging from the growing burden of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and hypertension to the problems with pervasive infectious conditions. She reported on the government’s management of the Covid-19 pandemic and closely followed the vaccination programme. Her stories have resulted in the city government investing in high-end tests for the poor and acknowledging errors in their official reports. Dutt also takes a keen interest in the country’s space programme and has written on key missions like Chandrayaan 2 and 3, Aditya L1, and Gaganyaan. She was among the first batch of eleven media fellows with RBM Partnership to End Malaria. She was also selected to participate in the short-term programme on early childhood reporting at Columbia University’s Dart Centre. Dutt has a Bachelor’s Degree from the Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication, Pune and a PG Diploma from the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. She started her reporting career with the Hindustan Times. When not at work, she tries to appease the Duolingo owl with her French skills and sometimes takes to the dance floor. ... Read More

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