‘Global scientific community looking at Chandrayaan-3 for new inferences’

Union Minister Jitendra Singh said that the global scientific community is looking at India's Chandrayaan-3 mission for any new inferences

Chennai: Global scientific community is looking at India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission for any new inferences as the country’s moon lander — Vikram — landed near the Moon’s south pole, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said.

Singh, the Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Space and Atomic Energy said this while speaking to national broadcaster Doordarshan. “Chandrayaan is being looked up by the entire scientific community across the globe because they expect some new inferences being gathered from there, most from Chandrayaan-3 because it’s gone into a virgin area. So obviously, the inputs, inferences that would be forthcoming from there would be of utility to all the other Space agencies as well for their future projects and planning,” he said.

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Singh said the US space agency NASA might have been the first to land on the Moon, but it was India‘s Chandrayaan-1 that picked up possible evidence of water molecules on the Moon. According to him, the G20 Summit is happening in India at a time when India’s flag is flying near the south pole of Moon, the first time any spacecraft has landed on the farther side of the Moon, and the nation’s achievements in Science & Technology, including the pioneering R&D success story in Covid vaccines, are being hailed across the globe.

Singh said ISRO has launched more than 380 foreign satellites, earning more than 250 million euros and more than $170 million by launching European and American satellites, respectively. “India’s overall Space economy today stands at about $8 billion, viz 2 per cent of the global (market share) but the entire world is recognising increased pace and that’s why the conservative projections are $40 billion by 2040, but later we had the ADL (Arthur D Little) Report, which has projected India’s Space economy to grow up to $100 billion by 2040. So we’ve started moving very fast, we are still conservative in our evaluation of ourselves, but the others’ assessment is much, much more, which means that we have indeed arrived,” he said.

He said all the agreements signed during the recent visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the US were technology driven — right from the Artemis Accords to Joint Expedition to the International Space Station and India signing up to the Semiconductor Consortium.