ISRO experiences delays in upcoming moon and Venus missions; House panel raises concerns

New Delhi: India’s next set of inter-planetary missions to the Moon and Venus in the next two years have been experiencing delays because of which their “timely accomplishment” may become “challenging”, a panel of lawmakers said in a report.

The MPs, briefed by Department of Space officials, raised concerns on how poorly the Indian Space Research Organisation spent the budgeted money for Chandrayaan-4 – slated for an Oct 2027 launch – and Chadrayaan-5 and Venus Orbiter missions, both due in 2028.

“The Committee is apprehensive that, if the pace of expenditure and project implementation continues at this level, the timely accomplishment of these missions as per the proposed timelines may become challenging,” the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology said in its report tabled this week.

Chandrayaan-4 will be a lunar sample return mission and the world’s first space probe making an attempt to bring back lunar soil from little-studied southern polar region.

The Rs 2,104 crore mission also aims to develop and prove critical new technologies including automated sampling and drilling, launching a vehicle from the moon and docking two spacecraft modules in lunar orbit.

Such technologies will provide foundation to New Delhi’s long-term objective of landing an Indian on the moon by 2040.

An allocation of Rs 150 crore was made for Chandrayaan-4 programme in the 2025-26 budget, but it was drastically cut to Rs 21 crore in the revised estimate presented to Parliament in December. The ISRO has spent just Rs 34 crore by January 31.

When asked about this poor expenditure, officials told the MPs that the downward revision was “primarily due to delays in the finalisation of mission design and the availability of long-lead items required for hardware realisation.”

These issues, they said, affected the planned schedule for procuring and producing certain mission components.

Also procurement of electrical, electronic and electromechanical components and propulsion elements for the spacecraft, originally envisaged in 2025–26, has spilled over to the next fiscal.

Procurement of raw materials for the launch vehicle, planned last year, has been pushed to the current financial year due to a change in the launch vehicle configuration to incorporate a semi-cryogenic engine. Such deferred procurements led to underutilisation of fund, they said.

Similarly for the Rs 982 crore Chandrayaan-5 programme – a collaboration with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency – Rs two crore was allocated in 2025-26 budget, but the allocation was raised to Rs 14 crore at the revised estimate stage. ISRO has utilised only Rs 58 lakh so far. The scheduled launch for Chandrayaan-5 is in Sept 2028.

For the ambitious Venus mission slated for a March 2028 flight, a small seed money was provided in the 2024-25 budget, but it remained unspent. In 2025-26, the initial allocation of Rs 50 crore was cut to Rs 29.5 crore in the revised estimate but ISRO spent Rs 5.12 crore by January 31.

“In view of the strategic and scientific importance of these missions, the Committee strongly recommends that the Department take proactive steps to improve the pace of fund utilization and project implementation,” the panel noted.