After PM Modi, US President Biden is accelerating India-US collaboration in space technology, ISRO chairman S. Somanath says at an event attended by US Ambassador Eric Garcetti.
Currently, lander for mission is awaiting approval from Department of Space. ISRO is responsible for developing lander for mission, while JAXA is handling rover & launch vehicle.
Dubbed the 'moon sniper', Japan aims to land SLIM within 100 metres of its target site on the lunar surface. The $100-million mission is expected to start the landing by February.
The lander performs a hop experiment on lunar surface, testing the tech of lifting off & landing on the moon — crucial for future missions to collect & return lunar samples to Earth.
Apollo 11 marked 1st crewed moon landing, while Luna 16 brought back lunar soil to Earth before Chandrayaan-3 became first to safely land near lunar South Pole.
The Luna-25 lunar lander, Russia's first since 1976, will be launched from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, some 5,550 km east of Moscow, according to Russia's Roscosmos space agency.
We now live in a world order that will keep shifting. India must use this window. This also means we remain disciplined enough not to be knee-jerked into reacting to what Pakistan sees as its moment in the sun.
COMMENTS