India’s new challenge: it wants to send a man to the Moon before 2040

India plans to send a man to the moon and have a space station before 2040, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said.

The announcement comes as the world’s most populous country prepares to conduct a key test flight on Saturday in its first crewed space mission.

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Building on the “success” of its space initiatives, India must “aim for new and ambitious goals, in particular the creation of the ‘Bharatiya Antariksha Station’ (Indian Space Station) by 2035 and the sending of the first Indian to the Moon from now to 2040,” Modi highlighted in a statement published Tuesday night.

The leader asked those responsible for the Indian space agency to prepare “a series of missions” on the Moon.

India was the first country to land a spacecraft near the largely unexplored lunar South Pole in August, and a month later it successfully launched a spacecraft to peer into the outer layers of the Sun.

In 2014, India became the first Asian country to put a satellite into orbit around Mars and its space agency launched 104 satellites in a single mission in 2017.

lunar mission

India is currently focusing on its first manned space mission, called Gaganyaan (space vehicle). The three-day mission, scheduled for next year, aims to send three crew members to Earth orbit at a cost of just over $1 billion, according to the national agency.

The country also plans to launch a probe to the Moon, in collaboration with Japan, another to Mars and an orbital mission to Venus in the next two years.

India manages to compete with established space powers with much more modest budgets.

Experts believe it can keep its costs down by copying and adapting existing technology, and thanks to a plethora of highly skilled engineers who earn a fraction of the salaries of their global counterparts.

Source: Elcomercio

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