This will not be ISRO’s first lunar landing mission. Chandrayaan-1, launched in 2008, included an orbiter and probe which descended to the surface to detect the presence of water molecules. The October mission, Chandrayaan-2, is to include an orbiter, lander, and solar-powered rover. The plan is for a surface mission lasting 14 days with the rover covering a 400-meter (1,300 feet) radius. The rover will gather evidence of existing surface deposits of Helium-3 which naturally collects on the Moon’s surface as the solar wind strikes it.

Helium-3 today is being used in experimental fusion reactors. The isotope is not radioactive. And the moon NASA estimates has in excess of 1 million tons of the stuff valued at $5 billion per ton. If India and other space operations can harvest even a quarter of the Moon’s Helium-3 it could help provide clean nuclear fusion power to the entire Earth for up to the next five centuries.

India hopes to be the first into this lucrative opportunity. There are many obstacles to be overcome on the way to making this commercially viable. Mining Helium-3 is just one step in a very complex logistical supply chain. ISRO will have to develop a space infrastructure that can get the Helium-3 from the lunar surface to Earth. As of yet, no country or commercial space venture has put together such an operation.

Although the nations of the world have been governed since the 1960s by an international treaty that prohibits the commercial exploitation of space, it appears that keeping to this promise is getting harder to do. Two nations, the United States, and Luxembourg have both legislated the right of commercial entities to mine asteroids and other space bodies. India will probably soon enact legislation of its own to give legality to its ambitious plans.

Rakesh Sharma, who flew on board a Russian spacecraft back in 1984, is quoted in an article in The Times of India, stating: “You can’t go to the Moon and draw boundaries…..I want India to show that we’re capable of utilizing space technology for the good of people.”

Doing space missions on a small budget is turning out to be India’s thing. The country spends about $1.7 billion annually on national space projects which include two made-in-India rockets launching numerous satellites including telecommunications, global positioning systems, and scientific payloads. India is even competing with SpaceX in the space launch business these days. The country sent an orbiter to Mars on the first try (something the Soviet Union couldn’t do) and did it on the cheap. The upcoming lunar mission is expected to cost $125 million.

Dating back to 1975 when India launched its first satellite from the Soviet Union, the country has been slowly developing a program with the goal to eventually put Indian astronauts into space. And today it continues to combine launch using foreign rockets as well as its own domestically designed vehicles to put satellites into space.

The PSLV first appeared in 2001 followed by its much larger cousin, the GSLV in 2004. In 2008 India launched Chandrayaan-1, a mission to place a satellite into lunar orbit. The orbiter operated successfully for 10 months before its on board power supply failed.

So what next for India’s Space Research Organisation, known by the acronym ISRO? A Mars orbiter mission is planned for late in the year. And further work on the GSLV launch vehicle may soon make it reliable enough to consider human space launches. Glitches with the upper stage of the GSLV has been the single biggest impediment to India joining the U.S., Russia and China as a space faring nation. But ISRO continues to look to achieving human space flight with a reworked GSLV as the launch vehicle before 2017. The agency has even discussed with Russia if there is available mothballed technology such as human lander that could be acquired for a mission to the Moon.

But it is more likely that India will not be sending human crews into space until early in the next decade. In the interim the country will continue to launch satellites for remote sensing. Plans include the development of an independent global positioning network. And the country remains committed to a second lunar mission within the next two years. Dubbed Chandrayaan-2, it will consist of both an orbiter and rover and will be launched using an improved GSLV.

ISRO’s advanced launch vehicles can be seen in the image below. On the left is the PSLV while the two on the right are the GSLV and the heavier launch vehicle the GSLV Mark III. It is the latter and its successors that will give India the capability to achieve human space flight.