India's Mangalyaan spacecraft is on its way to Mars, but the county is already planning its next major space exploration mission.
The country visited the Moon in 2008, and launched a budget Mars rocket in late 2013. But its next step is a mission to the Sun, which could begin as early as 2017.
Isro chairman K Radhakrishnan told the Times of India that the twelve-million-dollar mission would be called Aditya-1, and it will launch between 2017 and 2020.
While preparations have been made for the mission since 2008, India's space agency now has a clearer picture of what the mission will involve. Aditya-1 will study coronal mass ejection events and the parameters that govern space weather.
Other Indian missions planned include Astrosat -- a project aimed at designing and fabricating a space telescope, and a second Moon mission -- Chandrayaan-II -- which will include a lunar lander and rover.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
