Space odyssey: India hopes to send an orbiter to investigate the Moon. Credit: NASA

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is to submit a feasibility report to the government seeking permission and funding for a scientific mission to the Moon. The ISRO says it can launch the mission by 2005 if it gets the go-ahead.

The report, due to be delivered in about three months, is being prepared by an ISRO team assembled to look into the feasibility, cost and benefits of the project.

S. Rangarajan, mission coordinator and ISRO director for satellite communications, says the mission will cost about US$90 million — roughly a fifth of the ISRO's budget for 1999. He says it will be “a one-shot affair, not a continuing moon programme”.

The ISRO is considering modifying India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle to send a lunar orbiter carrying sensors and high-resolution cameras. “The orbiter will be a lighter version of the remote-sensing satellites we have been building for over a decade,” says P. S. Goel, director of the ISRO Satellite Centre.

According to Rangarajan, the mission has already been endorsed by India's scientific community. And ISRO chairman Krishnaswami Kasturirangan says the mission would “provide an impetus to science in India” and serve as a test-bed for future space missions.

But not all scientists are so keen. H. S. Mukunda, chairman of the aerospace engineering department at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, says the country is unlikely to benefit from repeating what others did 30 years ago.

The ISRO has listed several possible scientific objectives, including detailed mapping, studying the distribution of rare elements, and analysing the surface composition. It has also invited proposals from the research community.