This is for the very first time ISRO is making what it calls "a precious national resource in PSLV" available albeit at a still undisclosed cost to a private Indian company.
As part of the Google Lunar X Prize competition which after an extension of two deadlines is likely to end by 2017 before which all the competing teams which number about three dozen have to kick off their moon shot.
As off now, one Israeli team and two American teams have procured launch contracts and are close contenders for the prize.
Towards what Team Indus calls 'Har Indian Ka Moonshot' in the next 12 months it has to build from scratch a satellite that will lift off from India's space port Sriharikota atop riding on the PSLV, the same then has to make a soft landing on the moon and then a rover will have to slip out.
To finally win the prize the rules stipulate that the rover has to move 500 m on the lunar surface and should be able to beam back high definition images back to earth.
Team Indus claims they are now among the top four contenders for the prize and they already bagged USD 1 million milestone prize from Google. This has buoyed their spirits and today among the half a dozen other serious contenders only Team Indus has a "verified contract" to launch on a highly reliable globally acclaimed rocket.
Vivek Raghavan, lead for technology at Team Indus also called Jedi Master (Tech) - bringing an aura of a Star Wars like setting - says, "As part of the Google Lunar X Prize, there are obviously many teams in the beginning. There are still 16 teams in the competition. But the number of teams that actually have a launch contract are very few. We've been ranked among the top 3 teams in the world in the competition."
In contrast ISRO has been plodding along since 2008 with its much anticipated Chandrayaan-2 mission a massive exercise to indigenously make an orbiter, a soft lander and a rover that will be blasted into space according to Jitendra Singh, the Minister for Space Affairs in the Prime Minister's Office in the first quarter of 2018.
ISRO is hoping to deploy its heavy weight launcher the Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) which has had a rather patchy record and was dubbed by ISRO as its 'naughty boy' for this prestigious mission. Chandrayaan-2 is a heavy weight over 3000 kg satellite in comparison Team Indus's puny satellite weighing 600 kg baby, but with broadly similar goals. Truly a race between a truck and a Nano!
