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India sets sights on a moon base by 2047
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By Andrew Jones published 1 day ago
The head of the nation's space agency recently laid out a provisional
roadmap for lunar exploration.
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illustration showing four astronauts in white spacesuits exploring the moon. Artist's illustration of an American-led base on the moon. (Image
credit: NASA)
India is setting long-term goals that could see the country establish
its own moon base before 2050.
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman S. Somanath set out a provisional, integrated roadmap for exploring the moon in a Nov. 28 talk
at a symposium organized by the Indian Society of Geomatics and the
Indian Society of Remote Sensing. The plan would build on India's recent
lunar achievements and progress in human spaceflight ambitions.
India became the fifth country to make a successful robotic moon landing
this year with its Chandrayaan-3 mission. Following this, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in October that India should aim for "new and
ambitious goals," including putting astronauts on the moon by 2040.
Related: What would it be like to live on the moon?
S. Somanath’s roadmap builds around this new goal and sets out a
near-term phase of technology buildup, focusing on the Gaganyaan human spaceflight plan, developing new launch vehicles and increasing robotic
landing capabilities.
See more
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Outlined missions include the joint Indian-Japanese LUPEX rover and the Chandrayaan-4 lunar sample-return effort. Such work is envisioned to
build up to a crewed docking with the NASA-led Gateway space station in
lunar orbit, a crewed lunar landing, and, ultimately, a lunar base and a sustainable moon economy, based on minerals and tourism. A Next
Generation Launch Vehicle (NGLV) would be developed to facilitate some
of these missions. That new rocket will be partially reusable.
The plans are tentative but reveal the thinking of ISRO and are
indicative of its long-term ambitions. More concretely, the agency is
currently preparing test missions as a step to a crewed orbital mission
with its Gaganyaan spacecraft.
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Andrew Jones
Andrew Jones
Contributing Writer
Andrew is a freelance space journalist with a focus on reporting on
China's rapidly growing space sector. He began writing for Space.com in
2019 and writes for SpaceNews, IEEE Spectrum, National Geographic, Sky & Telescope, New Scientist and others. Andrew first caught the space bug
when, as a youngster, he saw Voyager images of other worlds in our solar
system for the first time. Away from space, Andrew enjoys trail running
in the forests of Finland. You can follow him on Twitter @AJ_FI.
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