India and Japan Collaborate on Chandrayaan-5 Lunar Mission

Chandrayaan-5 Mission Development

Indian and Japanese space agencies are set to commence the initial design phase for the Chandrayaan-5 mission. According to Aso Dai, the project manager for LUPEX at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the selection of instruments has been finalized, and testing of the engineering models is nearly complete. Both India and Japan are now entering the early design stage. The Chandrayaan-5, also known as LUPEX (Lunar Polar Exploration), is a collaborative project between ISRO and JAXA aimed at studying water and ice on the lunar surface and beneath it. This spacecraft, weighing 6.5 tons, is scheduled for launch aboard Japan's H3 rocket sometime in 2027-28.

Exploration Plans and Objectives

Using the rover, JAXA teams plan to identify areas on the moon where water is present by drilling into the surface to collect samples of the surrounding soil or regolith. The onboard instruments will measure the quantity and quality of water and conduct other in-situ observations. The Cabinet approved the Chandrayaan-5 mission in March this year, following India's successful soft landing on the moon's southern pole with Chandrayaan-3 over a year ago. The proposed Chandrayaan-4 mission will be a sample return mission, bringing back samples excavated from the moon for ISRO to study the mineral composition of the lunar surface.

Recent Developments in Space Exploration

Dai spoke at the Global Space Exploration Conference held in New Delhi last week. During the event, ISRO chief V. Narayanan mentioned that the Chandrayaan-5 mission is projected to last 3.5 months (100 days). ISRO is developing the lander for Chandrayaan-5, while JAXA is constructing a 350-kilogram rover equipped with seven scientific instruments, some of which will be provided by the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA. ESA is developing a mass spectrometer, and NASA is working on a neutron spectrometer, both of which are currently in the design phase.