Chandrayaan-4
Mission Profile
Chandrayaan-4 is India's planned lunar sample return mission, a significant step up in technical complexity from Chandrayaan-3 (which achieved a soft landing on the Moon's south polar region on August 23, 2023).
- Mission type: Lunar Sample Return — involves landing, collecting lunar regolith samples, and returning them to Earth
- Technical complexity: Requires rendezvous and docking in lunar orbit — a capability India is developing under the Space Docking Experiment (SpaDeX), successfully demonstrated in January 2025
- Chandrayaan-3 achievements: First country to soft-land near the Moon's south pole; Pragyan rover operated for approximately 14 days
- Chandrayaan-1 (2008): India's first lunar mission; discovered water ice on the Moon; carried Miniature Synthetic Aperture Radar (Mini-SAR) developed with NASA
- Chandrayaan-2 (2019): Orbiter operational; lander Vikram crashed during descent
● Tracked since February 28, 2026 · last seen April 20, 2026 · updates as the daily brief publishes
See it in today’s brief.
Daily current affairs with every static concept explained in place.
Read the daily brief