The national space agency, ISRO, will be embarking on quite a celestial journey with several missions lined up, including the Gaganyaan Mission, Mangalyaan-2 and Chandrayaan-4 and Chandrayaan-5.
India’s space ambitions are set to soar high in the near future, as the country has already made its mark on the global stage with Chandrayaan-3 becoming the first mission that made a landing on the moon’s south pole, helping to unlock myriad facts related to the lunar surface.
The national space agency, ISRO, will be embarking on quite a celestial journey with several missions lined up, including the Gaganyaan Mission, Mangalyaan-2 and Chandrayaan-4 and Chandrayaan-5.
A look at ISRO’s future missions
Gaganyaan Mission
Gaganyaan will be ISRO’s first attempt towards acquiring human spaceflight capabilities. Before sending the crew, the ISRO is planning to send an uncrewed mission to space under its Gaganyaan project.
According to the enhanced scope, the Gaganyaan programme will have eight missions including two crewed and six uncrewed, Union Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Jitendra Singh said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.
Singh said the earlier Gaganyaan programme entailed one crewed mission and two uncrewed ones. The total funding for the programme has been enhanced to Rs 20,193 crore to address the programmatic requirements, according to the revised scope that includes new developments for the Bharatiya Antariksh Station and precursor missions, he said.
The allocation also covers additional requirements to meet the ongoing Gaganyaan programme, he further said. The Gaganyaan project was announced in 2019 with the first manned space flight planned for 2022 and it plans to carry out two crewed space flights by 2028.
Aditya-L1 Mission
Aditya L1 is India’s first space-based solar mission, the main objective of which is to study the Sun’s Corona and its impact on space weather. The Aditya-L1 satellite, on January 6, reached its destination — the Lagrange point or the L1 point, about 1.
5 million kilometres from Earth from where it will orbit the Sun and study it.
Mangalyaan-2
The Mars lander mission is a proposed second mission to Mars by ISRO. After its first Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) was successful, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) called for ‘Announcement of Opportunities’ on the second mission. Aiming higher, ISRO, through this mission, seeks to land a rover and a helicopter on the Martian surface.
Chandrayaan-4 and Chandrayaan-5
Chandrayaan-4 will involve at least two separate launches of the heavylift LVM-3 rocket that will carry five different components of the mission, which will be assembled in orbit. The mission aims to bring back samples of the moon rocks to Earth in 2027.
Meanwhile, the Central Government recently accorded approval for he ambitious Chandrayaan-5 mission to study the Moon, ISRO Chairman V Narayanan said. The Chandrayaan mission consists of studying the lunar surface.
