India, whose lunar ambitions have been more clearly articulated now than a decade ago, is firing on all engines with the National Space Commission, the apex body that decides on space missions, clearing the fifth lunar mission — the Lunar Polar Exploration Mission or Lupex. Unlike missions Chandrayaan 1 to 4, this will be jointly implemented by India and Japan, but is part of India’s lunar series that eventually aims to send an Indian to the Moon and bring her/him back. The Union cabinet cleared Chandrayaan-4 on September 18, and Lupex will be put up for cabinet clearance soon, although the space commission nod gives Isro the go-ahead to work on the mission. “We wanted some more approvals [from cabinet] to happen. Possibly, in the coming days, they will also get approved… We have to have a series of Chandrayaan missions which will build up the capability from the current level to the one which will actually send humans to land on the Moon and bring them back,” Isro chairman S Somanath, in an exclusive interview to TOI’s Chethan Kumar. Lupex is a mission aimed at exploring the Moon for water and other resources and gaining expertise in exploring the surface of the Moon.
