Chandrayaan 4: In Search of Soil and Water

While the memories of Chandrayaan 3 haven’t blurred from our minds, ISRO plans to achieve another milestone– Chandrayaan 4.

The Lunar Polar Exploration Mission (LUPEX), named Chandrayaan-4, is a collaboration between the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The mission is supposed to launch in the year 2026 or later. The mission will send an uncrewed lunar lander or rover to explore the South Pole region of the moon. JAXA will provide the under-development H-3 launch vehicle and the rover, while ISRO will provide the lander.

Nilesh Desai, Director of the Space Applications Centre (SAC/ISRO), mentioned, "It's a very ambitious mission, and hopefully, in the next five to seven years, we will meet the challenge of bringing samples from the moon."

OBJECTIVE OF THE CHANDRAYAAN-4 MISSION

The primary goal of the Chandrayaan-4 mission is to bring soil samples from the Moon and find out whether the Moon has water and how this scarce resource can be utilised. Two methods are applied to find water on the surface of the Moon; these include figuring out how much water and what kind of water is available on the Moon.