Vijayawada: Distinguished scientist A Rajarajan and Director Satish Dhawan Space Centre, ISRO, Sriharikota has said that by 2040, the mission of ISRO will be to land on Moon. They will be gathering minerals from the Moon and Mars for testing.

In April 2024 ISRO Chairman S Somanath indicated that Chandrayaan-4 marks the initial stride towards India's aspiration of landing an astronaut on the moon by 2040.

They said ISRO has got many achievements to its credit and is marching ahead in innovations and space exploration activities.

Somnath further said that ISRO is working on plenty of other projects ranging from rocket and satellite projects to technology development projects. “There are plenty. We have major projects, rocket projects, we have satellite projects, application projects and technology development projects. Rocket projects are around 5-10, satellite projects are about 30-40, and application projects are in 100s and R&D projects are in 1000s,” he added.

India made significant strides in space exploration with the successful landing of the Chandrayaan-3 lander module on the moon's South Pole on August 23, marking a historic achievement as the first country to accomplish this feat.

The ISRO team attended the international conference on computational intelligence for green and sustainable technologies (ICCIGST 2024) which began on Thursday at Siddhartha Academy of Higher Education University (SAHE University), formerly known as VR Siddhartha Engineering College, Vijayawada. The conference will conclude on Friday.

Rajarajan said in Sriharikota only one to two per cent area is used for space centre and the remaining is full of dense forest to achieve sustainability on earth. Both ecosystem and water needs to be taken care of.

Dr Ch Nageswararao, President, Siddhartha Academy of General & Technical Education, M Rajaiah, Convener, SAHE University, Dr AV Ratna Prasad, Vice-Chancellor, SAHE university and others were present.

(With Inputs From Agencies)