【India Announces: Chandrayaan-4 Will Go to the Moon for Sampling and Bring Back 2 to 3 Kilograms of Lunar Soil】
According to a statement by ISRO Chairman Narayanan, India plans to launch "Chandrayaan-4" and "Chandrayaan-5" in 2028 to implement a lunar sampling return mission, aiming to bring back 2 to 3 kilograms of lunar soil. This amount even exceeds China's Chang'e-6 mission's 1.935 kilograms. The news has caused great excitement in India, but if analyzed from the perspective of technical approach and difficulty, the gap between India and China in terms of lunar sampling and return capabilities remains significant.
Looking back at India's lunar exploration journey, Chandrayaan-1 achieved lunar orbiting, Chandrayaan-2 failed in landing but retained its orbiter, and it was only Chandrayaan-3 that successfully made a soft landing near the lunar south pole. While this achievement is commendable, it has also led some Indian media to quickly "raise their emotions," directly comparing it with China's space program, which clearly overestimates its own capabilities.
The real turning point lies in "sample return." Chandrayaan-4 has a total mass of 9.2 tons, consisting of five modules. However, India's most powerful rocket, LVM3, has limited carrying capacity and cannot complete the mission in one launch. Instead, it will require two launches, Earth orbit rendezvous and docking, in-orbit assembly, and then a lunar transfer. This plan itself involves an extremely long technical chain and numerous risk points, placing high demands on engineering reliability.
In contrast, China's Chang'e-5 and Chang'e-6 missions both rely on the Long March 5 heavy-lift rocket, completing the entire process of lunar transfer, sampling, takeoff, and return in a single launch, making the system more concise and the risks more controllable. This reflects a generational gap in rocket carrying capacity and system engineering capabilities.
More importantly, the task difficulty itself is key. Chang'e-6 went to the far side of the moon, requiring the deployment of a relay satellite in advance to solve the communication "blind spot" issue, making its technological complexity much higher than sampling from the near side or the south pole. Chandrayaan-4's landing area is close to where Chandrayaan-3 landed, with good communication conditions with Earth, making the mission environment relatively "friendly."
It cannot be denied that India is steadily advancing its lunar exploration plan, with ambitious goals, even proposing a crewed lunar landing around 2040. But currently, India's lunar sample return mission is more of a high-risk "catch-up project," while China has already formed a systematic advantage in key areas such as heavy rockets, automatic sampling, and operations on the far side of the moon.
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1855800615221260/
Statement: This article represents the personal views of the author.