Article Posted on : - Nov 17, 2009

India's Mission Mars will take flight in 2030, says ISRO chief.

TIRUPATI (BNS): After stamping its feet on the Moon, India now aims to explore the Red planet by sending a spacecraft there by 2030.

India�s premier space agency ISRO is planning the Mars exploration mission in the next two decades, ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan said here on Monday.

He termed it as the �next logical frontier in space� after Chandrayaan-II � India�s second lunar mission.

The Government has sanctioned seed money of Rs 10 crore to carry out various studies on experiments to be conducted, route of the mission and other related details necessary to scale the �new frontier�.

At present, ISRO is working on the Chandrayaan-II mission which is expected to be launched by 2013. It will send robots and rovers to the Moon to study its surface and other aspects.

The euphoria over discovery of water on the lunar surface by Chandrayaan-I has made the scientific community curious enough to further explore the Earth�s natural satellite.

Next in line would be sending a manned mission to space, the ISRO chief said.