India's ambitious plans on space station on track, says Chandrayaan-3 project director

India's ambitious space programme, aiming for a homegrown space station by 2035 and an Indian astronaut setting foot on the moon by 2040, is making steady progress, according to P. Veeramuthuvel, the Project Director of ISRO's Chandrayaan-3 mission.

Speaking to PTI on Saturday, Veeramuthuvel highlighted the commitment of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and ISRO chairman towards these ambitious goals. "Prime Minister Narendra Modi and ISRO chairman have already said that by 2040 we should have an Indian astronaut on the moon and also to have our space station by 2035. These are very ambitious plans that ISRO has taken up and we are working towards that," he stated.

Updating on the recent successes, Veeramuthuvel mentioned the achievement of the Chandrayaan-3 mission in bringing back the Propulsion Module (PM) to Earth's orbit. 

"As far as Chandrayaan-3 is concerned, the lander and rover mission successfully completed one lunar day. We successfully completed the hop-on experiment wherein we used the same engine where we landed and again we operated the payload for one earth day," he elaborated.

The propulsion module, designed to orbit the moon, met all the mission objectives successfully, showcasing India's technological prowess. Veeramuthuvel explained, "We brought the propulsion module back to Earth's orbit because we got some propellant available in the propulsion module and demonstrated (our capability) by successfully bringing it from the moon's orbit to Earth's orbit."

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