In September this year, NASA succeeded in obtaining the first-ever samples from the near-Earth asteroid, Bennu. This was enabled by its OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, which re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere after completing a seven-year-long journey.
Along similar lines, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is now planning an ambitious mission wherein the space agency will attempt to collect soil or rock samples from the Moon and bring them to Earth. The proposed mission is called the Lunar Sample Return Mission (LSRM).
So far, all the Chandrayaan missions have studied the lunar surface, soil and samples in-situ (at the site itself) using instruments onboard the payloads. After Chandrayaan-3 successfully landed over the lunar south pole on August 23, the space agency has been involved in chalking out future missions to the Moon. The spot where Vikram had landed on the lunar south pole was later named the Shiv Shakti point.
“ISRO is now planning a bigger mission, where we will try to bring back rock or soil samples from the Shiv Shakti point. Hopefully, in the next five to seven years, we will be able to meet this challenge,” said Nilesh Desai, director, ISRO’s Space Application Centre (SAC), during his visit to Pune on Friday.
Primarily, the mission involves four modules – Transfer module, Lander module, Ascender module and the Re-entry module. This is why the proposed mission will have two separate launch vehicles, a departure from the norm from all of ISRO’s Moon missions so far.
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“The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mark-II will be used for the injection of the transfer and the re-entry modules. Whereas the Launch Vehicle Mark-III will be used for the Direct injection of the Ascender and the Lander modules,” Desai explained.
As per the mission design, a robotic arm mechanism will be used for the sample collection at the Shiv Shakti point. The samples will be first transferred or loaded onto the Ascender module. After the Ascender module lifts off from the lunar surface, it will dock onto the Transfer module. Here, another robotic arm will shift the samples from the ascender module to the re-entry module. Lastly, the transfer and the re-entry modules are expected to return and land on Earth.
The LSRM, like Chandrayaan-3, is planned for one lunar day (14 Earth days) and the expected launch date is in 2028.
