President of Indian Space Research Organization‘S (ISRO) V Narayana announced that the center has approved Chandrayan-5 Mission to the Moon.
The mission will be a joint project with Japan, the PTI news agency cited Narayan.
“Only three days ago we obtained the approval of the Chandrayan-5 mission. We will do it in association with Japan,” said Isro’s head at an event to congratulate him for assuming the president of the organization based in Bengaluru on Sunday.
Narayan also revealed that the Rover of Chandrayaan-5 will be 10 times heavier than Chandrayaan-3, which took the 25 kg ‘pragyaan’ rover.
Chandrayaan-5 will be preceded by Chandryaan-4, which will be launched in 2027 to bring samples collected from the moon.
Isro Chandryan Mission
The Chandrayan mission aims to study the lunar surface. Chandrayaan-1, successfully released in 2008, took chemical, mineralogical and photogeological mapping of the moon. The Chandrayan-2 mission (2019) was 98 percent success, but only two percent of the mission could not be achieved in the final stages.
However, the High Resolution Chamber on board in Chandrayaan-2 continues to send hundreds of images, said Narayanan, also secretary of the Department of Space.
Chandrayan-3, a monitoring mission to Chandrayaan-2, demonstrated the end-to-end capacity of Isro in the security and red landing on the lunar surface.
On August 23, 2023, Isro executed a successful ‘Soft Lands’ of Chandrayaan-3 in the Southern Pole of the Moon, which makes India only the fifth nation to achieve a successful soft landing (joining the United States, Russia, China and Japan) on the lunar surface and the first to do so in its southern pole.