News Mania Desk/ Piyal Chatterjee / 18th September 2024
The Chandrayaan-4 mission, an innovative lunar exploration project aimed at showing technologies for landing on the Moon, gathering samples, and safely returning them to Earth, has received approval from the Indian government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Cainet also gave its approval to the Bharatiya Antariksh Station (BAS) and the Venus Orbiter Mission.
With a budget of Rs. 2,104.06 crore (about $253 million), this ambitious Moon mission is expected to be a significant step towards India’s long-term space exploration objectives.
The new mission will concentrate on developing and testing critical technologies needed for upcoming lunar missions, including as safe return to Earth, lunar sample collection and analysis, and docking and undocking in lunar orbit.The project fits in with India’s larger plan for its space program, which includes lofty goals like building the Bharatiya Antariksh Station (Indian Space Station) by 2035 and accomplishing a crewed lunar landing by 2040.
Chandrayaan-4 is anticipated to be essential in accomplishing these goals through the verification of vital technologies and capabilities.The spacecraft’s development and launch will be led by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), and the mission is anticipated to be finished within 36 months of permission.
The initiative will have a large academic and industrial component in India, which could lead to increased employment possibilities and technological breakthroughs in a number of economic sectors.
Focusing on domestic technological development is a crucial component of Chandrayaan-4, as it attempts to make India self-sufficient in vital areas needed for human missions and lunar exploration.Facilities for the curation and analysis of returned lunar samples will also be established by the mission, and they will be invaluable national resources for scientific study.
The budget for the Venus Orbiter Mission (VOM) is Rs. 1,236 crore, or about $149 million. Launch day is set for March 2028. Improving our knowledge of Venus’s surface, subsurface, and atmospheric processes as well as the Sun’s impact on the planet’s atmosphere is the main goal of VOM.
Venus, which was formerly thought to be habitable and comparable to Earth, is thought to have undergone significant alteration. Investigating these changes may yield priceless information on the development of Venus and Earth.
Additionally, the Cabinet has given its approval to the expansion of the Gaganyaan program in order to create the first module of the Bharatiya Antariksh Station (BAS-1).
The launch of the BAS-1 unit is one of the eight missions that are now part of the redesigned Gaganyaan program, which is scheduled for completion by December 2028. The Gaganyaan initiative has received an additional allocation of Rs 11,170 crore to fit its expanded scope, bringing the total budget to Rs 20,193 crore.
