India plans to send astronaut to moon by 2040, set up space station by 2035

The PM directed that India should now aim for new and ambitious goals, including setting up ‘Bharatiya Antariksha Station’ by 2035 and sending first Indian to the moon by 2040, a government statement said.

• Shubham
• 17 October, 2023

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By: Shubham Ghosh

INDIA’S Narendra Modi government on Tuesday (17) said the country plans to send an astronaut to the moon by 2040 as it issued instructions to the space department that also include plans to set up a space station by 2035.

In August, India’s space ambitions received a massive boost when the country became the first in the world to land a spacecraft near the moon’s unexplored south pole. It also became the fourth nation overall to engineer a soft-landing on the natural satellite.

Last month, India also launched a rocket to study the sun and will carry out a test later this week as part of its crewed mission to space.

“Building on the success of Indian space initiatives, including the recent Chandrayaan-3 and Aditya L1 missions, the prime minister directed that India should now aim for new and ambitious goals, including setting up ‘Bharatiya Antariksha Station’ (Indian space station) by 2035 and sending first Indian to the Moon by 2040,” the government said in a statement.

Modi, who addressed India’s space agency ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) from South Africa where he had gone for the BRICS summit at the time of the lunar landing and flew directly to the agency’s headquarters in Bengaluru from Greece while returning home, also called on Indian scientists to work on missions to Venus and Mars.

(With agencies inputs)