Click to play videoBangalore: Today is the 37th anniversary of the world's first lunar landing and it coincides with the 30th anniversary of the first Mars expedition by Viking.
With India's own lunar mission, Chandrayaan scheduled for next year, ISRO has a galaxy of plans waiting to take off.
Scientists have been working on the Chandrayaan mission for over five years now.
If successful ISRO's unmanned lunar mission would put the country in league with just a select few. It's easily the most ambitious space programme that India has taken up till date and there's more in store.
Says Space Commission member, U R Rao, "Chandrayaan can't be one stop. It has to be followed up by something else otherwise it's meaningless. What's the point in sending something to the moon and then saying 'we've done it'. It's not a publicity gimmick, it's much more than that. We have to have another follow-up programme like Chandrayaan II or inter-planetary missions. These are being developed."
The red planet, Mars, could be next on ISRO's radar. It's not a far-fetched notion, but there are a few hurdles that need to be crossed before India reaches there.
A precision-guidance system that will take a spacecraft to a planet nearly 36 million miles away and a signal recieving system need to be put in place.
"There are study groups trying to come up with recommendations on what to do. A Mars mission or a comet or asteroid mission will all obviously depend on our capability," says Rao.
In fact, ISRO is already building a deep space network station in Bangalore to receive signals from its moon mission. This will also serve as a base for future inter-planteray missions.
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