ISRO, JAXA gears up for joint Chandrayaan-5/LUPEX Mission in technical meet

United News of India

16-05-2025

Chennai, May 16 (UNI) The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and JAXA,
the space agency of Japan, jointly conducted the third face-to-face Technical Interface
Meeting (TIM-3), towards the Chandrayaan-5/LUPEX mission.
The Chandrayaan-5 / LUPEX missions will be one of the major short-term milestones
in India's lunar exploration odyssey, which envisions Indian Gaganyatris (astronauts)
landing on the Moon by year 2040.
The meeting was held in ISRO Headquarters, Bengaluru and was attended by senior
officials, project executives, and technical team members from ISRO, JAXA, and the
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), Japan, ISRO said on Friday .
Following the legacy of Chandrayaan-1, Chandrayaan-2 (orbiter-based lunar exploration),
Chandrayaan-3 (lander-rover based in-situ exploration) and the forthcoming Chandrayaan-4
(India's first lunar sample return mission), the Chandrayaan-5/LUPEX (LUnar Polar EXploration)
mission will be the fifth mission in the Chandrayaan series of lunar missions, in collaboration with
JAXA, to study the lunar volatile materials, including lunar water, in the vicinity of a Permanently
Shadowed Region (PSR) in the lunar South pole.
The mission will be launched by JAXA onboard its H3-24L launch vehicle, carrying the ISRO-made
lunar lander, which will carry the MHI, Japan-made lunar rover. ISRO, apart from developing the lunar
lander, is also responsible for developing a few scientific instruments for the mission.
The scientific instruments for this mission would be contributed by ISRO, JAXA, ESA and NASA,
all thematically connected with the exploration and in-situ analysis of the volatiles reserved in the
lunar polar region.
The approval for the Chandrayaan-5/LUPEX mission was received from Government of India on
March 10, 2025, in the form of financial sanction.
During the meeting, M. Ganesh Pillai, Scientific Secretary, ISRO congratulated both the teams for
the technical achievements so far, and emphasized on the importance of the collaborative endeavor
for the scientific and technical aspects of the mission.
Dr. Tirtha Pratim Das, Director, Science Programme Office, ISRO Headquarters, briefed about the
major milestones achieved in terms of the landing site selection, payload optimization, mission design,
as well as the ground segment and communication aspects.
G Ravi Chandra Babu, study team leader of Chandrayaan-5/LUPEX, briefed about the technical
configurations arrived.
He emphasized on the need for the clear definition of the milestones, timeline and deliverables of
the project.
Mr. Dai-Asoh, JAXA briefed about the technical progress made towards the development of the
rover and the interfaces related.
The two days face-to-face meeting deliberated on the various technical interfaces, joint mission
implementation plan, as well as the potential landing sites for the mission.
UNI GV 1815