Bengaluru, February 9 The Chandrayaan-4 mission is at least two years away, but ISRO has identified a location in the South Polar region of the Moon for its lander to land.
The union government has approved the Chandrayaan-4 mission, which is designed as a lunar sample-return mission, and it will be India's most complex lunar endeavor yet.
"We are targeting 2028 for Chandrayaan-4," ISRO chairman V Narayanan had earlier said.
According to ISRO officials, they had identified four sites within the Mons Mouton (MM) region and found one of them suitable for landing on the lunar surface.
Mons Mouton is a region on the Moon.
Officials said they had identified the locations – MM-1, MM-3, MM-4, and MM-5. Of these, MM-4 was chosen for the landing.
"The four sites in the Mons Mouton area were fully characterized with respect to terrain characteristics using high-resolution Orbiter High Resolution Camera (OHRC) multi-view image datasets," they said.
It was found that the one-kilometre by one-kilometre area around MM-4 contains "the least hazard percentage, mean slope of 5 degrees, mean height of 5334 metres, and the most number of hazard-free grids of size 24 metres by 24 metres. Therefore, MM-4 could be considered as a potential site for the Chandrayaan-4 mission," officials said.
Chandrayaan-4 consists of a propulsion module (PM), a Descender module (DM), an Ascender Module (AM), a Transfer module (TM), and a Re-entry Module (RM).
The DM and AM combined stack will make a soft landing on the lunar surface at the designated site.
The main soft landing will be achieved by an appropriate stack (AM+DM) descent trajectory with a navigation, guidance, and control system, while a safe landing can be ensured by proper selection of the landing site that meets all the constraints of the Lander.