India prepares a mission to the moon to claim its space power

BENGALURU, July 13 (Reuters) – India’s space agency is preparing to launch a rocket on Friday that will attempt to land a rover on the moon and mark the country’s arrival as a powerhouse in space exploration and the new frontier of space commerce.

Only the United States, the former Soviet Union, and China have made successful lunar landings. An attempt by a Japanese startup earlier this year ended with the lander. dash.

Built on a budget of just under $75 million, Chandrayaan-3 will take off from India’s main spaceport in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh at 2:35 pm local time (09:05 GMT).

If all goes to plan, a 43.5-meter (143-foot) LVM3 launch rocket will launch the spacecraft into an elliptical Earth orbit before it turns toward the moon for a scheduled landing around August 23.

The launch by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is the country’s first major mission since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government announced policies to stimulate investment in private space launches and related satellite-based businesses.

India wants its space companies increase its share of the global launch market five times in the next decade, officials said, up from 2% by revenue in 2020.

Chandrayaan, which means “moon vehicle” in Sanskrit, includes a 2m-tall lander designed to deploy a rover near the lunar south pole, where it is expected to remain functional for two weeks conducting a series of experiments.

But analysts say the launch also has a secondary mission: signaling that India is open for business in the fast-paced private sector space race.

“A successful mission will add to India’s global stature and bring spillover benefits on the business side of the industry,” said Ajey Lele, a consultant at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis in New Delhi.

ISRO’s Chandrayan-2 mission in 2020 successfully deployed an orbiter, but its lander and rover were destroyed in a crash near where Chandrayan-3 will attempt to land.

Since 2020, when India opened up to private launches, the number of space startups has more than doubled. Late last year, Skyroot Aerospace, whose investors include Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC, launched India’s first privately built rocket.

On a visit to the United States last month, Modi and US President Joe Biden promised to deepen collaboration in the space.

Voyager Space, a Denver-based company that has a contract with NASA to develop the Starlab space station, said this week it had signed a memorandum of understanding with ISRO to use Indian rockets and would seek opportunities to collaborate with Indian space companies.

“India views space as a strategic asset and aspires to become one of the major players in outer space,” said Carla Filotico, managing director at consultancy SpaceTec Partners.

“This could be India’s opportunity to be one of the pioneers in this industry.”

Reporting by Nivedita Bhattacharjee in Bengaluru; Edited by Kevin Krolicki and Jamie Freed

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