ISRO to retrieve soil and rock samples from Moon in Chandrayaan-4 mission

ISRO has plans to retrieve soil and rock samples from the lunar surface in the Chandrayaan-4 mission. During an event on the 62nd foundation day celebration of Pune's Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology on Friday, Director of Space Applications Centre Nilesh Desai detailed about ISRO's two-big ticket missions - LUPEX and Chandrayaan-4.

Desai also talked about the discussions scientists recently had with PM Narendra Modi who told them to take up bigger challenges.

Talking about Chandrayaan-4, Desai said that it will be sample return mission that will be ready in five to seven years from now. According to the scientist, the Chandrayaan-4 mission will involve a bigger rover (350 kg) in a much bigger lander than what was used for Chandrayaan-3.

Interestingly, Chandrayaan-4 will include four modules - Transfer Module, Lander Module, Ascender Module, and Re-entry Module - and the mission will require two rockets to launch all the components.

The plan is to collect the samples using the Ascender Module after it separates from the Lander Module. This Ascender Module will then be incorporated with the Re-entry Module which will re-enter the Earth's atmosphere in the last leg of the mission. Notably, two of the components - the Transfer Module and Re-entry Module - will be parked in the lunar orbit waiting for the samples.

"It's a very ambitious mission hopefully in next five to seven years we will meet this challenge of bringing sample from the surface of the moon," Desai said per ANI. "We have all this on paper right now and we are working on different technology to achieve this and it's achievable with available capabilities at ISRO," he further said.

ISRO is hoping to use the landing data that will be collected from Japan's SLIM lander which is due for landing in early 2024. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched the SLIM mission on September 6 and it will touchdown at the rim of Shioli crater on the near side of the Moon in early 2024.

Apart from their private quests, ISRO and JAXA are jointly working on the Lunar Polar Exploration (LUPEX) mission which is targeted for launch in 2025 to investigate the presence of water (ice), its abundance and quality in the Moon's south pole. LUPEX will also include a bigger rover for the purpose. 

Notably, a series of Chandrayaan missions are in the pipeline to realise India's dream of Moon exploration and putting an Indian astronaut on the lunar surface by 2040. This goal was set by PM Modi during when he reviewed the readiness of the Gaganyaan mission on October 17. As part of the Moon exploration plan, the Department of Space will prepare a roadmap for the same while also working on missions to Venus and Mars.

The PM had also directed officials to aim to set up a ‘Bharatiya Antariksha Station’ (Indian Space Station) by 2035.