In August, India became the first country to land an unmanned spacecraft on the moon’s south pole. This was just the beginning. Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced this week that exploration of the satellite will continue in the coming years until a key milestone is reached: the journey of the first astronauts to 2040.
To get there, you still need a few conquests. The country’s space agency said it would draw up a roadmap that includes the development of a launch vehicle, the construction of a new platform and the commissioning of several laboratories.
Other missions related to his future arrival on the Moon and his special race are already on the agenda. For example, next Saturday the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) will launch empty crew module in space and will return it to Earth to test the emergency exit system.
This is one of several tests of Project Gaganyaan, which aims to send three astronauts into space in 2025. This will be his first manned mission. The journey will orbit about 400 kilometers from the Earth’s surface over three days.
India, before sending this manned mission, will also organize another test flight with the robot on board. The government explained that next year it would launch a spacecraft carrying Vyommitra, a “female robot astronaut.”
Indian space station before flight to the moon
India It is the third country to confirm plans to send a manned mission to the Moon. in the coming years. NASA, the US space agency, is conducting its own tests to launch the Artemis mission in 2025. This is expected to be the first human trip to the moon in more than 50 years. China, for its part, has assured that it will do the same until 2030. He even stated that he hoped to build a base on the surface of the Moon.
The Indian government also said on Tuesday that it hopes to commission its first space station by 2035. This was a project that was in principle planned for 2022. However, it was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic and other technical glitches associated with Indian human spaceflight launches.
The proposal for a new space station emerged in the final years of the NASA-led International Space Station (ISS). The ISS is expected to be deorbited around 2030, after more than 30 years of operation.
As in the case of expeditions to the Moon, China also has its own plan for this. The China Academy of Space Technology (CAST), an arm of China’s top space contractor, said this month it will expand its space station, already in orbit since 2021, from three to six modules in the coming years. Its new projected power makes it an alternative to NASA power.
Confidence in India’s space race
India has admitted that its plans are ambitious. But they are moving forward confidently, becoming the first country to land on the south pole of the Moon. And he did it, moreover, at the last minute, taking credit for being the world’s second great space power.
The Russian Luna 25 mission planned to land on the lunar south pole on August 21. Thus, the landing in India will be postponed by a couple of days. But everything went wrong: the space agency Roscosmos ship crashed during maneuvers before landing on the Moon.
India conducted the exploration on its space rover for almost 10 days. They were able to confirm the presence of sulfur, iron, oxygen and other elements in this region of the Moon. Pragyan, as the robot was called, was then put into sleep mode in the hope of trying to wake it up when sunlight returned to that area of the satellite. But in September they sent signals to the rover and lander and received no response.
But the enthusiasm didn’t stop there. Almost immediately after traveling to the moon, he embarked on another mission, unprecedented in India. The Aditya-L1 spacecraft launched in early September with the goal of sending the satellite 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. What’s here? This is the region that allows you to see the Sun unobstructed. and, therefore, a great opportunity to deepen the study of our star.
Source: Hiper Textual
