India recently announced its long-term vision for lunar exploration. The country is looking forward to establishing a base on the moon before 2050.
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman S. Somanath announced while setting out a provisional integrated roadmap for lunar exploration during a Nov. 28 discussion at a symposium planned out by the Indian Society of Geomatic and the Indian Society of Remote Sensing.
The futuristic plan would focus on building India’s recent achievements on the moon and advance its human spaceflight goals. After India landed its Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander on the south pole on August 23, the country became the fourth nation to ever achieve a successful landing on the moon. ISRO is also the first to ever land successfully on the lunar south pole.
This accomplishment inspired India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi to reveal the next advanced plan of ISRO. In October, the Prime Minister said that India is now aiming to achieve new and ambitious goals such as putting astronauts on the lunar surface by 2040. To support Modi’s future goals for ISRO, S. Somanath revealed that the agency will be setting out a near-term phase of technology buildup.
This buildup will primarily focus on the Gaganyaan human spaceflight plan, increasing robotic landing capabilities and building new launch vehicles.
Will India Possibly Build a Base on the moon in the 2040s?
During the ISG-ISRS 2023, ISRO Chairman S. Somanath explained how an integrated lunar exploration roadmap with the long-term ambition of developing a moon base will be accomplished in 2047. The chairman analyzed the current technological progress of ISRO before making his conclusion.
This implies that India will have all it takes to establish a base on the moon before 2050. India officials announced their plan to land humans on the moon by 2040. If India is capable of attaining such a milestone in the next 17 years, then we should be expecting a lunar base from the agency in 2047.
The agency outlined forthcoming missions. These missions include the joint Indian-Japanese LUPEX rover and the Chandrayaan-4 lunar sample return effort. The agency also envisioned developing a crewed docking with the Lunar Gateway space station in lunar orbit, a crewed moon landing, establishing a lunar base, and building a sustainable moon economy based on the moon’s minerals and for tourism.
The agency is looking forward to developing a Next Generation Launch Vehicle (NGLV) to accomplish some of these missions. That new rocket will be made to be partly reusable. India is seriously preparing test missions for its crewed orbital mission with the Gaganyaan spacecraft. With the effort currently put in place, ISRO is confident that it will accomplish its future moon missions with time.
