Go-ahead for 5th Moon mission, Japan to be expedition partner

BENGALURU: India, whose lunar ambitions have been more clearly articulated now than a decade ago, is firing on all engines, with the National Space Commission clearing the fifth lunar mission - the Lunar Polar Exploration Mission or Lupex. The commission is the apex body that decides on space missions.

Unlike missions Chandrayaan 1 to 4, this will be jointly implemented by India and Japan but is part of India's lunar series that eventually aims to send an Indian to the Moon and bring her/him back. The Union cabinet cleared Chandrayaan-4 on Sept 18, and Lupex will be put up for cabinet clearance soon.

"We wanted some more approvals (from cabinet) to happen. Possibly, in the coming days, they will also get approved... We must have a series of Chandrayaan missions which will build up the capability from the current level to the one which will actually send humans to land on the Moon and bring them back," Isro chairman S Somanath told TOI in an exclusive interview.

The Lupex mission is aimed at exploring the Moon for water and other resources and gaining expertise in exploring its surface.

Although Isro and Japanese space agency Jaxa signed an agreement in 2017, one of the challenges that prevented work on Lupex after India's Chandrayaan-2 mission was the inability to demonstrate soft-landing of the lander on the lunar surface.