Science and Technology › Space

Moon, Sun and planetary missions

Missions to the Moon, the Sun, the planets and the asteroids, India's and other countries': what each is sent to find, and what it finds. Prelims has asked about Mangalyaan, the Mars Orbiter Mission.

UPSC has asked

Prelims 2016: Mangalyaan, the Mars Orbiter Mission

Showing 1 of 3 subjects, those that changed from 16 to 31 July 2026.Show all

Science results from Chandrayaan-3 and Aditya-L1

Prelims

Chandrayaan-3 landed near the lunar south pole in 2023 with a thermal probe, a spectrometer, a plasma probe and a seismometer, and Aditya-L1 observes the Sun from the first Lagrange point; this subject holds the scientific results published from both.

What changed

23 Jul 2026New subject
- The ChaSTE thermal probe on Chandrayaan-3 went 10 cm into the surface and gave the first temperature profile measured in place at a high lunar latitude. A sharp change in thermal conductivity at about 6 cm marks a two layer regolith whose porous top acts as a blanket over any water ice below.
- The Pragyan rover's X-ray spectrometer found a uniform, magnesium rich composition that supports the lunar magma ocean hypothesis. The RAMBHA-LP probe made the first plasma measurements near the surface at high latitude, and the ILSA seismometer logged more than 250 vibration events.
- Aditya-L1 captured the first spectroscopic signatures of the onset of a coronal mass ejection.
- The landing and navigation methods proved here feed Chandrayaan-4 sample return, the LuPEX mission with Japan and the Venus Orbiter Mission.
PIB, 23 Jul 2026: PARLIAMENT QUESTION: ACHIEVEMENTS OF ADITYA-L1 MISSION (opens in a new tab)

Also filed elsewhere

The Artemis Accords · on Space policy, private sector and governance
The Artemis Accords are the terms on which the American lunar programme admits a partner, and India accepted them in 2023.