BT India@100: Chandrayaan-3's data is going to be critical for all space agencies, says MoS Jitendra Singh  

Chandrayaan-3's data is not just critical for the Indian space agency but also for the space agencies around the world, scientists noted at Business Today’s India@100 Summit on Saturday. ISRO chief S Somanath and his team, which has been involved in the Chandrayaan-3 mission, spoke exclusively to Business Today on Saturday. The scientists highlighted that the data collected by the lunar mission would be pivotal for the world's scientific community.

Jitendra Singh, Minister of State for Science and Technology, highlighted this further by saying, "This was a totally unexplored area where we landed, the south pole of the moon. The insights, the data, the information our mission will gather from there is going to be critical for all space agencies and scientists."

He further said, "The manner in which this mission has been planned, there is going to be a wide range of steps in the information gathering. For example, last time we discovered the presence of water molecules, this time we wish to go further, examine the area, the terrain, its composition, what is the presence of water, in which form, solid, liquid or gas, what is the composition of other gases.”

“Next level we want to see plasma, the ionic atmosphere, in the third level we want to check soil composition, amount of magnesium, calcium, potassium, etc," Singh said while speaking on the kinds of experiments Chandrayaan-3 would carry out on the Moon.

Somanath talked about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to ISRO's command centre in Bengaluru and said it was a privilege for the scientists that he was there virtually during the soft-landing of Chandrayaan-3. He also said PM Modi apologised to the scientists on Saturday morning for meeting them early morning.

"The PM apologised and said sorry to wake you all so early. We felt so humbled, for someone of the PM’s stature to apologise to us. We explained to him, it was not an inconvenience at all. We had anyways been up looking after the experiments done by Chandrayaan-3," the ISRO chairman said.

Also Watch: From generative AI, fair use of IP to job cuts, need for reskilling, Web 3.0 and more, Oxford professor Soumitra Dutta decodes all things AI at BT India@100 Summit