Chandrayaan-4 mission: ISRO selects Mons Mouton site for landing

ISRO has identified a landing site in the Moon’s south polar region for the Chandrayaan-4 mission, targeted for 2028. The site at Mons Mouton was selected after detailed terrain analysis for India’s lunar sample-return mission

Bengaluru: The Chandrayaan-4 Mission is at least two years away, but ISRO has identified a location in the South Polar region of the Moon to land its lander.

The Union government has approved the Chandrayaan-4 mission, designed as a lunar sample-return mission, and it will be India’s most complex lunar endeavour yet.

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“We are targeting 2028 for Chandrayaan-4,” ISRO Chairman V Narayanan had earlier said.

According to ISRO officials, they had zeroed in on four sites in 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 locations MM-1, MM-3, MM-4 and MM-5. Of them, MM-4 was chosen for the landing.

“The four sites in the Mons Mouton area were fully characterised with respect to terrain characteristics using high-resolution Orbiter High Resolution Camera (OHRC) multi-view image datasets,” they said.

It was found that a one-kilometre by one-kilometre area around MM-4 contains “the least hazard percentage, a mean slope of 5 degrees, a mean height of 5,334 metres and the highest number of hazard-free grids of size 24 metres by 24 metres. Hence, MM-4 could be considered the potential site of 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 soft-land on the Moon’s surface at the designated site.

The main soft landing will be carried out by an appropriate stack (AM+DM) descent trajectory with a navigation, guidance and control system, while safe landing can be ensured by proper selection of the landing site that meets all the constraints of the lander.