After Vikram's 'hop', Isro eyes next lunar leap: Missions to bring back samples from the Moon

{ TAKE-OFF ABILITY IN FOCUS } NEXT CHANDRAYAAN?

- Soumya Pillai

After the success of Chandrayaan-3, India's third mission to the Moon, the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) is developing expertise in missions that would be capable of returning samples to Earth, and a hop carried out on the lunar surface by the Vikram lander on September 3 was a move in that direction, officials said.

The findings from Chandrayaan-3, especially the successful hop experiment, will form the basis of future lunar missions, an Isro official said, declining to be named. Based on experiments on the moon, the space agency will design programmes where samples can be brought back to Earth, he said.