India funds Moon lander, space station module, and Venus orbiter

Wants lunar sample return within three years, Venus launch in 2028, orbiting hab in 2035, boots on Luna five years later

India's government last week signed off on three big space missions: a Moon lander, a space station module, and a Venus orbiter.

The Moon mission is called Chandrayaan-4 and received ₹2,104.06 crore funding – about $290 million – that should cover spacecraft development, two launches of the LVM3 booster, external deep space network support, and "special tests for design validation." The mission has been given 36 months to land a craft capable of returning samples to Earth.

Space projects seldom stay on track, so it would be unusual if Chandrayaan-4 launches by 2027 as planned.

If it is delayed a year, it will have plenty of competition for resources – 2028 is the year India plans to launch its Venus orbiter and space station module.

The Venus probe has been given a budget of around $150 million, around two thirds of which will be spent building a spacecraft capable of investigating the planet's "surface and subsurface, atmospheric processes and influence of Sun on Venusian atmosphere."

Indian astro-boffins think considering those aspects of the Venusian environment will help to study "the underlying causes of transformation of Venus," which is believed to have once been habitable and quite similar to Earth. The scientists argue such research "would be an invaluable aid in understanding the evolution of the sister planets … Venus and Earth."

The biggest-ticket item, India's orbiting lab, is called the Bharatiya Anthariksh Station and has a budget of around $1.35 billion. The first module is seen as a pathfinder for construction of a fully-operational station by 2035. India wants the full facility to be fit for activities including "microgravity-based scientific research & technology development."

The station is being developed under India's Gaganyaan crewed spaceflight program, which is expected to conduct eight launches before 2028.

As is usually the case with India's space program, the sums involved – a combined $1.8 billion – are very modest compared to those incurred by the likes of NASA and the European Space Agency.

India's achievements on low budgets have been beyond impressive: its Mangalyaan Mars Orbiter Mission cost just $74 million and operated for nine years – 16 times longer than expected. More recently, 2023's Chandrayaan Moon lander made a safe touchdown and was the first to do so near Luna's south pole. The mission's orbiting module was left with so much fuel in reserve it was able to conduct extra experiments. ®