India announces New Moon Mission

New Delhi, Sep 18 (PTI) As space scientists prepare for India's maiden moon odyssey, the government today approved another lunar mission which entails landing a rover on the earth's natural satellite. The Union Cabinet, at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, gave the nod to Chandrayaan-II which is to be an Indo-Russian mission with a projected launch in 2011-12. The Cabinet also approved upgrading the associated existing ground segment at a total cost of Rs 425 crore including a foreign exchange component of Rs 293.50 crore, Information and Broadcasting Minister P R Dasmunsi told reporters here. Scientists are planning to land a rover on the moon for carrying out chemical analysis of the lunar surface and explore other resources there. "In situ chemical analysis and resource exploration is the main objective of Chandrayaan-II," a scientist associated with the mission said. India had begun initial technical discussions on Chandrayaan-II which is expected to be a much shorter mission than Chandrayaan-I scheduled for launch later this year. An agreement for Chandrayaan-II was signed by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Roskosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Moscow in November last year.

It is planned that Chandrayaan-II will be a rover. It will weigh between 30 kg and 100 kg, depending on whether it is to do a semi-hard landing or soft landing. The rover will have an operating life-span of a month. It will run predominantly on solar power. The rover will be designed to move on wheels on the lunar surface, pick up samples of soil or rocks, do in situ chemical analysis and send the data to the Earth. So it is strong opponent to private Google Lunar X Prize teams.