ISRO on Thursday announced that it has conducted the third face-to-face Technical Interface Meeting (TIM-3) with JAXA, the Japanese space agency, for the Chandrayaan-5/LUPEX (LUnar Polar EXploration) mission.
The Chandrayaan-5 / LUPEX mission is expected to be a significant milestone in India’s lunar exploration odyssey, which envisions Indian Gaganyatris (astronauts) landing on the Moon by 2040, it said.
The meeting during May 13-14 at the ISRO headquarters in Bengaluru, was attended by senior officials, project executives, and technical team members from ISRO, JAXA, and the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), Japan.
According to ISRO, building on the legacy of Chandrayaan-1, Chandrayaan-2 (orbiter-based lunar exploration), Chandrayaan-3 (lander-rover based in-situ exploration) and the forthcoming Chandrayaan-4 (India’s first lunar sample return mission), Chandrayaan-5 / LUPEX mission will be the fifth in the Chandrayaan series of lunar missions, in collaboration with JAXA, to study the lunar volatile materials, including lunar water, in the vicinity of a Permanently Shadowed Region (PSR) in the lunar South pole.
The mission will be launched by JAXA onboard its H3-24L launch vehicle, carrying the ISRO-made lunar lander, which will carry the MHI, Japan-made lunar rover.
Apart from the lunar lander, ISRO is also responsible for developing a few scientific instruments for the mission.
The scientific instruments for the mission would be contributed by ISRO, JAXA, ESA (European Space Agency) and NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), all thematically connected with the exploration and in-situ analysis of the volatiles reserved in the lunar polar region, the space agency said.
The approval for Chandrayaan-5 / LUPEX mission was given by the Centre on March 10, 2025, in the form of financial sanction.
During the meeting, M Ganesh Pillai, Scientific Secretary, ISRO congratulated both teams for the technical achievements so far and emphasized on the importance of the collaborative endeavour for the scientific and technical aspects of the mission.
Tirtha Pratim Das, Director of Science Programme Office, ISRO Headquarters, briefed about the major milestones achieved in terms of the landing site selection, payload optimization, mission design, as well as the ground segment and communication aspects.
G Ravi Chandra Babu, study team leader of Chandrayaan-5/LUPEX, outlined the technical configurations arrived, and stressed the need for clear definition of the milestones, timeline and deliverables of the project. Dai-Asoh of JAXA, in his opening address, discussed the technical progress made towards the development of the rover and the interfaces related.
The two-day face-to-face meeting deliberated on the various technical interfaces, joint mission implementation plan, as well as the potential landing sites for the mission, it said.
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