3 min readBengaluruJul 31, 2026 04:11 AM IST
A Japanese space delegation on Wednesday held discussions with their counterparts at Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to take stock of the progress being made on Chandrayaan-5 — a joint mission to the Moon scheduled for 2028.
Scientists from Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) visited the UR Rao Satellite Centre in Bengaluru on Wednesday. The two countries have been working on Chandrayaan-5 also known as Lunar Polar Exploration Mission (LUPEX), a first-of-its-kind joint rover mission to the Moon. For this project, ISRO is building the lander module, while JAXA is developing the rover, the one which will come out of the lander module after landing and move around on the surface of the Moon, surveying the topography and collecting data.
The mission will take off on a Japanese rocket, H3, and is planned to carry seven scientific instruments for carrying out different kinds of experiments. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the US and the European Space Agency (ESA) are also participating in this mission, and will be mounting their payloads on the rover. The ESA is developing the mass spectrometer and NASA is developing the neutron spectrometers. Chandrayaan-5 is planned to stay on the Moon for 100 days i.e. 3 and five months.
During their Wednesday meeting, scientists of ISRO and JAXA discussed the technical co-ordination required for Inter Spacecraft Communication of Chandrayaan-5. This mission aims to study water and water-ice both on the lunar surface and the subsurface.
The two agencies took stock of the onboard payloads and on the possible launch window, which is likely to be in 2028. Last week, JAXA successfully performed the second Payload Operations Simulation at Tsukuba Space Center. The complex operational scenario, involving both spacecraft bus and payload operations, were tested in parallel.
Chandrayaan-5 was approved by the Government in March 2025 in the backdrop of India’s landing on the lunar south pole with the Chandrayaan-3 mission in August 2023. ISRO’s immediate next mission to the moon will be the Chandrayaan-4 mission.
Gaganyaan-1 in progress
Bengaluru: The assembly, integration and testing of the Crew and Service Modules of the Gaganyaan-1 human spaceflight mission are nearing completion, Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh said in a written reply in Lok Sabha on Wednesday. He detailed the mission’s status, and completed tasks in his reply to Jaipur MP Rao Rajendra Singh.
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Gaganyaan-1 uncrewed mission was originally scheduled for launch in late 2025. It was later pushed to the first quarter of 2026. Singh had, during the Winter Session of House, 2025, said that the G-1 launch would take place before March 2026. But, ISRO is yet to release the revised launch date. ens