New Delhi: Indian and Japanese space agencies working on the Chandrayaan-5 mission, aimed at deeper exploration of the Moon’s surface, mainly for water, will soon commence the preliminary design phase of the lander and the rover.
“The instrument selections have been done, the engineering model testing is almost done, and both India and Japan are entering the preliminary design phase,” according to Asoh Dai, Project Manager, LUPEX, at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
Chandrayaan-5, also known as LUPEX (Lunar Polar Exploration), is a joint project between ISRO and JAXA to study water and water-ice both on the lunar surface and the subsurface. Weighing 6.5 tonnes, it is proposed to lift off on a Japanese rocket, H3, sometime in 2027-28.
Using the rover, JAXA teams plan to trace areas on the Moon with presence of water, sample the nearby soil or regolith by drilling into the surface. The onboard instruments will measure the water content and its quality and perform other in-situ observations.
India approved Chandrayaan-5 in March this year, more than a year after India became the first country to achieve a soft landing on the Moon’s south pole with Chandrayaan-3. The proposed Chandrayaan-4 mission will be a return sample mission: samples dug from the Moon will be brought to Earth for ISRO to study the mineral composition of the lunar surface.
