New Delhi, September 18 (HS). The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved various proposals related to the field of space. These include missions to the Moon and Venus and missions related to India's permanent station in space. The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved these on Wednesday.
Under the missions approved in the cabinet today, India will launch a lunar mission named Chandrayaan-4. Its objective is to develop and demonstrate technologies to return to Earth after successfully landing on the Moon. It also aims to collect samples from the Moon and analyze them on Earth. Apart from this, India will send a mission to Venus. Its name is Venus Orbiter Mission (VOM). Its objective is to do scientific exploration, better understand the atmosphere and geology of Venus and collect a large amount of scientific data by investigating its dense atmosphere.
Apart from this, the construction of Indian Space Station (BAS) has been approved for post-Gaganyaan missions and scientific research. BAS will be established with the launch of its first module in 2028. Along with this, new reusable low-cost next generation launch vehicles (NGLV) will be developed. This will be an important step towards establishing and operating the Indian space station and developing the capability of landing Indian crew on the Moon by 2040. With a net additional funding of Rs 11,170 crore in the previously approved program, the total funding for the Gaganyaan program with the revised scope has been increased to Rs 20,193 crore.
The total amount sanctioned for the “Venus Orbiter Mission” (VOM) is Rs 1236 crore, out of which Rs 824.00 crore will be spent on the spacecraft. The cost includes development and implementation of the spacecraft, including its specific payloads and technology elements, global ground station support costs for navigation and networks as well as the cost of the launch vehicle.
A total of Rs 2104.06 crore is required for the technology demonstration mission “Chandrayaan-4”. The cost includes development and implementation of spacecraft, two launch vehicle missions of LVM3, external Deep Space Network support and conducting special tests for design verification, which will ultimately lead to the mission of landing on the surface of the moon and safe return to Earth with the collected lunar sample.