‘Interest in the moon is not over yet!’ said ISRO chief S Somanath who is buoyed by the successful Chandrayaan-3 mission. He revealed that the Indian space agency is now eyeing to bring some rocks from its surface.
Delivering a lecture at Rashtrapati Bhavan Cultural Centre (RBCC) here under the ‘Rashtrapati Bhavan Vimarsh Shrinkhala’, he said, “On the moon, our interests are not yet over. I assure Rashtrapati Ji, that we will bring some moon rocks ourselves. It is not going to be an easy mission.”
“If you want to go to the moon and come back and land and recover everything then you need much more technology than what we actually have to land it. The sample return mission is a very complex mission and everything has to be done autonomously with no human being involved,” Somanath said as quoted by PTI.
He further said, "So we are currently designing such a mission and we would like to do it in the next four years' time. That is our target. The mission to send "an Indian to space" is currently going on. The service and crew modules have been designed."
“We will launch (humans) very safely to space and bring them back also safely. For the safety of the mission, we are currently doing a lot of work. We desire to build a space station,” Somanath said, adding that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has reviewed its preparations and has already given directions to build a space station by 2035,” the ISRO chief added.
Somanath stated that the Indian space agency is working on an operational space station where human beings can go, dock, and work. Before ISRO builds the space station, its first module will be launched by 2028, he informed.
"And that will be a robotic space station. But the manned space station will come only by 2035 because we need new rockets to do that," the ISRO chairman said.
He even talked about India's moon missions – Chandrayaan-1, Chandrayaan-2, and Chandrayaan-3, while hinting that models of Chandrayaan-3 could possibly be displayed during the Republic Day parade, PTI reported.
"I welcome all of you to see the models of Chandrayaan-3 possibly during the Republic Day parade. (It is) likely to be there so you can see the real-life size of the craft," he said.
India had on August 23 this year scripted history as ISRO's third moon mission Chandrayaan-3's Lander Module (LM) touched down on the lunar surface, making it only the fourth country to accomplish the feat, and first to reach the uncharted south pole of earth's only natural satellite.
(With PTI inputs)
