India's Journey
to the Moon

On India's 56th Independence Day, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced that India would send its own spacecraft to the Moon by 2008, named Chandrayaan-1.

Launched aboard PSLV-C11 from Sriharikota. Its Moon Impact Probe struck near the south pole on 14 November 2008, and data from the mission led to the landmark discovery of water molecules on the Moon.

Launched on GSLV Mk III. The Vikram lander was lost during its landing attempt on 6 September 2019, but the orbiter remains operational, mapping the Moon with the highest-resolution lunar camera ever flown.

Vikram soft-landed near the lunar south pole, making India the fourth country to land on the Moon and the first to do so in the southern high latitudes. The Pragyan rover confirmed sulfur in the soil, ChaSTE measured the first south-polar temperature profile, and ILSA recorded a moonquake. 23 August is now celebrated as India's National Space Day.

The Union Cabinet approved India's first lunar sample return mission with a budget of ₹2,104 crore. Five modules launched on two LVM3 rockets will collect and return up to 3 kg of lunar soil to Earth. Targeted for launch around 2028.

The Cabinet approved the joint ISRO–JAXA Lunar Polar Exploration mission: an ISRO-built lander carrying a ~350 kg Japanese rover to hunt for water ice at the lunar south pole, launching on Japan's H3 rocket around 2028–29. The implementing arrangement with Japan was signed in August 2025.