'Chandrayaan-5 approved by govt, to be joint mission with Japan': Isro chief V Narayanan

Chairman of Indian Space Research Organization's (Isro) V Narayana announced that the Centre has approved Chandrayaan-5 mission to the Moon.

The mission will be a joint project with Japan, news agency PTI quoted Narayanan as saying.

"Just three days back we got the approval for the Chandrayaan-5 mission. We will be doing it in association with Japan," the Isro chief said at an event to felicitate him for taking over as the chairman of the Bengaluru-headquartered organization, on Sunday.

Narayan further revealed that Chandrayaan-5's rover will be 10 times heavier than that of Chandrayaan-3, which carried the 25-kg rover 'Pragyaan.'

Chandrayaan-5 will be preceded by Chandryaan-4, due to be launched in 2027 to bring samples collected from the Moon.

Isro's Chandryaan mission
The Chandrayaan mission aims at studying the lunar surface. Chandrayaan-1, successfully launched in 2008, took chemical, mineralogical and photo-geologic mapping of the Moon. The Chandrayaan-2 mission (2019) was 98 per cent success but just two per cent of the Mission could not be achieved in the final stages.

However, the onboard high resolution camera on Chandrayaan-2 continues to send hundreds of images, Narayanan, also the Secretary of Department of Space, stated.

Chandrayaan-3, a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-2, demonstrated end-to-end capability of Isro in safe-landing and roving on the lunar surface.

On August 23, 2023, Isro executed a successful 'soft-landing' of Chandrayaan-3 on South Pole of the Moon, making India only the fifth nation to achieve a successful soft-landing (joining the US, Russia, China and Japan) on the lunar surface and the first to do so on its South Pole.