New Delhi, Mumbai: A catastrophic power failure forced India to pull the plug on its moon mission. But that hasn't stopped the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) from dreaming big.
How big? Mars.
" Mars mission will be taken up after Chandrayaan-2, you cannot plan a mission to Mars just like that. Only once in two years we get the opportunity," said Dr G Madhavan Nair, Chairman, ISRO.
On Saturday, ISRO confirmed that it had lost contact with Chadrayaan 1, India's first unmanned lunar spacecraft. Now, here's what it wants the government to sanction for the next 10 years.
In 2012 it wants to launch a second mission to the moon, Chandrayaan-2; followed with a mission to study the Sun; an unmanned mission to Mars before 2015. ISRO hopes to put an Indian in space from Indian soil in 2015; and then, in 2018, a mission to an asteroid.
But is this bravado or the determination of an agency to go boldly forward where no Indian has gone before?