India to explore Sun and Venus next: PM Modi after Chandrayaan-3 successfully lands on Moon

After the successful landing of Chandrayaan-3 lander module Vikram on Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that India has set new, ambitious targets for the future, hinting at missions seeking to explore the Sun and other planets including Venus.

As India became the first nation to successfully land on the Lunar South Pole, PM Modi in a virtual address to the ISRO scientists said that Chandrayaan-3's landing on the moon is a historic moment and sounds the bugle for a developed India.

The ISRO will soon embark on other ambitious projects including a planned visit to the sun, putting humans in space and starting a space tourism industry by the year 2030.


"India's successful moon mission is not India's alone...Our approach of one earth, one family one future is resonating across the globe...Moon mission is based on the same human centric approach. So, this success belongs to all of humanity," Modi said noting that this stupendous feat has been achieved during India's G20 presidency.

The Aditya L1 is set to be India's first space-based mission to study the Sun, according to ISRO's website. On August 26, the launch date, a satellite shall be placed in a halo orbit around the Lagrange point 1 (L1) of the Sun-Earth system. This point is about 1.5 million km from the Earth.

The satellite placed at that point will have the advantage of continuously viewing the Sun without any occultation/eclipses, ISRO says.

Another collaboration is the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar mission, or NISAR, which will use advanced radar to precisely track changes in the Earth’s land and ice surfaces. The satellite is scheduled to launch from India in 2024. India also has ambitions for missions to study the sun and Venus.

ISRO says that India's space tourism journey is on track, and that by 2030, one can embark on space tourism by the year 2030. The expected cost of a ticket for such a journey would be Rs 6 crore.