Two Indian ‘moonshots’ in 2018

Two vastly different Indian teams are planning separate ‘moonshots’ in 2018 – one is an Indian Space Research Organisation effort, while the other is TeamIndus, a private start-up aiming to claim the Google Lunar XPrize (GLXP) winnings of $20 million and put Indian space businesses on the map.

TeamIndus is led by Rahul Narayan, an IT entrepreneur and IIT-Delhi graduate, along with four co-founders: former IAF fighter pilot Samir Joshi (also a regular contributor to Vayu); investment banker Julius Amrit; advertising professional Dilip Chabria; and aerospace engineer Indranil Chakrobarthy. The venture is the only Indian entry for the GLXP, which calls for teams to send privately funded robotic spacecraft to the Moon, travel 500 metres, and transmit high-definition video and images back to Earth. Participants are required to launch their spacecraft no later than 31 December 2017.

That deadline will put them ahead of the larger and betterfunded ISRO Chandrayaan-2 project, which presently plans for an early-2018 launch and will see a robotic rover probe the lunar terrain for 14 Earth days. However, both missions will launch using ISRO launch vehicles. The 3,250 kg Chandrayaan-2 payload (around four times heavier than the TeamIndus payload) will be launched aboard ISRO’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mk.II, while TeamIndus will launch using a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), sharing space with fellow GLXP contestant Team Hakuto of Japan. The end-2017 launch timeframe has led to TeamIndus planning to land their craft on the moon on the morning of Republic Day 2018.