India’s lunar exploration ambitions took a major leap forward with ISRO Chairman V Narayanan’s announcement at the 76th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Sydney, outlining a two-mission roadmap that will cement India’s role in next-generation Moon exploration. ISRO is now moving beyond landing technology and into complex missions that involve sample return and international collaboration.

Chandrayaan 4: India’s First Lunar Sample Return Mission

Narayanan revealed that Chandrayaan 4 will mark India’s first attempt at returning samples from the Moon, a crucial capability that only a handful of spacefaring nations possess. The spacecraft will weigh approximately 9,600 kg, beyond the lift capacity of a single Indian launch vehicle. To overcome this challenge, ISRO will adopt a novel approach, launching the mission in two separate rockets, followed by an in-space docking operation to consolidate the modules.

This ambitious mission will rely on technologies ISRO has just begun mastering. Earlier in 2025, ISRO successfully demonstrated space docking, undocking, redocking, and power/data transfer between satellites under its SPADEX mission. Even more significantly, these operations were achieved with only 50% of the planned fuel consumption, underscoring the efficiency of ISRO’s systems. The Chandrayaan 4 mission will utilize this very capability to join the separately launched payloads before heading to the Moon.

Adding to this technological arsenal is a space robotic arm, first tested from the POEM-4 platform earlier this year. Originally designed as a space debris capture demonstration, the robotic arm shows strong potential for use in docking, lunar sample handling, and construction in orbit. Both docking ability and robotic arm operations are also seen as vital precursors to India’s Bharatiya Antariksh Station project, planned for full operations by 2035.

Chandrayaan 5/LUPEX: Indo-Japanese Lunar Cooperation

The second major lunar mission unveiled by Narayanan is Chandrayaan 5/LUPEX, a collaborative effort with Japan’s space agency, JAXA. Unlike Chandrayaan 4, which targets sample retrieval, LUPEX will be an extensive lunar surface science mission with a heavy-duty lander and rover.

The lander for LUPEX will weigh around 6,800 kg, more than four times heavier than Chandrayaan 3’s 1,600 kg lander. Similarly, the LUPEX rover will leap in capacity, from the 25 kg Pragyan rover used in 2023 to a far more capable 350 kg rover. This rover will be equipped with significant scientific payloads aimed at probing the lunar environment, especially the polar regions thought to contain subsurface ice.

The mission will have a planned operational lifespan of 100 days, considerably longer than Chandrayaan 3’s short-lived surface operations. Both ISRO and JAXA see LUPEX as a stepping stone for human presence on the Moon, as its findings on volatiles and surface conditions will be critical for resource utilization and habitat planning. JAXA will also provide the heavy launch vehicle for the combined mission.

Summary

ISRO has set an ambitious timeline, targeting a 2027 launch for Chandrayaan 4 and a 2028 launch for Chandrayaan 5/LUPEX. Success in these missions will establish India not only as a reliable spacefaring nation but as a contributor to international lunar science and exploration partnerships. With sample return capability on one hand and deep collaboration with JAXA on the other, India positions itself as a key player in the global Moon exploration framework of the late 2020s.

Agencies