CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (CSIR-NEERI) celebrated the 85th CSIR Foundation Day at its auditorium on October 1, with Dr Prakash Chauhan, Director, National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), ISRO, Hyderabad, as chief guest. Delivering the Foundation Day Lecture on ‘Exploring Earth’s Moon with Indian Lunar Missions’, Chauhan said India has emerged as a major space-faring nation, progressing from its early space programme to advanced lunar and planetary missions.

 

Chauhan traced the country’s journey from the establishment of the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station in 1963 to indigenous launch vehicles, satellites, space infrastructure and planetary missions. He also highlighted the growing participation of private organisations and start-ups in the space sector.He discussed Chandrayaan-1 to Chandrayaan-3 and their scientific and technological achievements, besides Chandrayaan-4, the planned lunar sample-return mission. He outlined challenges involved in collecting, preserving and safely returning lunar samples. Chauhan also spoke about Chandrayaan-5/LuPEX, the ISRO-JAXA mission planned to explore the Moon’s southern polar region and study lunar volatiles, including water, particularly in permanently shadowed regions.

 

He said future missions would help unravel questions about the Moon’s origin, evolution, surface and resources. Dr S Venkata Mohan, Director, CSIR-NEERI, in his welcome address, highlighted CSIR’s contribution to a knowledge-driven India and NEERI’s work on water, air quality, climate change, waste management and carbon circularity. The institute released its April-September 2026 newsletter and a policy brief on climate-attributed ecosystem loss and damage reporting. Employees completing 25 years of service and recent retirees were honoured. Around 1,000 students from 20 schools and colleges visited the institute and attended laboratory demonstrations. Mohan highlighted NEERI-ZAR for flood-affected areas of Assam, eco-rejuvenation of 110 hectares of degraded land and research on emerging contaminants, with applications of artificial intelligence. Meritorious children of employees were felicitated too.