'Chandrayaan glitch not to affect space missions'

After rectifying the technicalglitch on India's first moon mission, Chandrayaan-I, ISROchief G Madhavan Nair today said the problem will not affectthe country's future space missions.

Asked if the problem will dampen India's future spacemissions especially when it is planning to sendChandrayaan-II, Nair said, "Not at all."

Special: Destination Moon

Star sensor, a critical instrument on board India's onlysatellite orbiting the moon, failed on May 16 due tooverheating and cast doubts on completion of the two-yearmission launched on October 22 last year.

On ISRO's future missions, he said the organisation isplanning to send the first manned flight around 2015.

"There would be two men in human capsule on a seven-daymission. It will be launched from Sriharikota," he said.

On sending an Indian to moon, Nair said, "At the moment wedon't have such plan."

But he strongly favoured a manned mission to moon byIndia, saying the US and China have declared they would liketo have their men on the lunar surface by 2020.

"I do not know whether we can afford to lagging behind inthat," the ISRO chairman said.

Saying India would be in position to launch such a missionin about five to six years time "a period beyond 2015", Nairmaintained, "Superiority of a nation depends on technology.Space is where the highest level of technology is beingdemonstrated. Today, I can say we are on par with power withdeveloped nations as far as technology is concerned."