Chandrayaan-2, an Indian odyssey

India’s first unmanned moon mission, Chandrayaan-1, may have been a huge success, but its 2013 sequel, Chandrayaan-2, has no space for any foreign payloads. This means that Chandrayaan-2 is likely to be an almost all-Indian payload with just the lander being Russia-made.

The Rs425 crore Chandrayaan-2 mission is envisaged to have an India-made orbiter that would revolve around Moon and a Russia-made lander (carrying an Indian rover) which would touch down to allow the rover to carry out exploratory and scientific work on the lunar surface.

“We are unsure if we can provide opportunities for foreign space agencies to be part of the Chandrayaan-2 mission. As of now, we are not going to advertise stating that there are opportunities (for foreign space agencies) to be part of this mission,” said Prof UR Rao, chairman, Advisory Committee on Space Sciences (ADCOS), which finalised the seven payloads for Chandrayaan-2 mission.

Following the Chandrayaan-1 mission and its path-breaking discovery of water and hydroxyl molecules on Moon, many space agencies wanted to collaborate with ISRO for the Chandrayaan-2.

But the Chandrayaan-1 mission had more foreign payloads than Indian, as a result of which discoveries made during the mission (2008-09) did not allow ISRO to claim adequate credit due to embargoes and the ‘lock-in’ period agreement which it signed with foreign space agencies after finalising the payloads.