On August 23, India became the fourth nation to have a soft landing on the surface of the Moon through its Chandrayaan-3 lander-rover duo. The following month, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) announced the launch of the Aditya-L1 mission, which aims to study the surface of the Sun in 2024. These astronomical feats have sparked India's ambitious goals for its space program.
Update on Gaganyaan Mission
Based on the success of Indian space initiatives, Prime Minister Narendra Modi directed that the country should now aim for new and ambitious goals. This includes setting up the 'Bharatiya Antariksha Station' (Indian Space Station) by 2035 and sending the first Indian astronaut to the Moon by 2040.
On October 17, Modi chaired a high-level meeting with the Department of Space to assess the Gaganyaan Mission's progress and discuss the future of the country's space exploration endeavors. The human spaceflight program aims to fly three astronauts to low Earth orbit and send them back safely to land in Indian waters.
The Department of Space also evaluated the readiness of the mission. Three uncrewed missions will test the launch vehicle throughout this year. As part of the testing process, the first high-altitude abort test will be conducted on October 21 to validate the crew escape system.
After being launched from the spaceport in Sriharikota, the Test Vehicle Demonstration 1 (TV-D1) mission will assess the effectiveness of the drogue parachutes in stabilizing the spacecraft and decelerating it during reentry to the Earth's atmosphere. Another test flight will be conducted where a robot will be carried to outer space before the final manned mission in 2025.
By the middle of the 2030s, the Indian government hopes to have a 20-ton space station in a fixed orbit 248 miles (400 km) above the Earth. It will be designed to host astronauts for 15 to 20 days at a time.
To make this possible, the Department of Space will develop a roadmap for Moon exploration. The roadmap will encompass a series of Chandrayaan missions, designing a Next Generation Launch Vehicle (NGLV), constructing a new launch pad, setting up human-centric Laboratories, and other related technologies.
Interplanetary Endeavors
The Prime Minister also urged Indian scientists to work towards interplanetary missions, including a Venus orbiter mission and a Mars lander. Modi expressed his confidence in the country's capabilities and affirmed its commitment to scale new heights in space exploration.
ISRO is currently developing the payloads for the Venus orbiter Shukrayaan-1, which will study the surface of the hot planet. The second orbiter mission to Mars is also underway. In 2013, the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) was launched and studied the planet's atmosphere for eight years before it lost contact with Earth. The follow-up mission, MOM 2, might include a lander and cameras to study the red planet's crust. The other aspects of the mission plans are yet to be finalized.
RELATED ARTICLE: Aditya-L1: India's Historic Sun-Studying Odyssey Set To Illuminate the Skies on September 2nd
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