LUPEX Project Team Activities in India: Wins GLEX2025 Gold Award, Holds Technical Meeting with ISRO, and Visits Japanese Ambassador.

At the Global Space Exploration Conference (GLEX2025) held in New Delhi from May 7–9, Mr. Dai Asoh, Project Manager of the LUPEX mission, was awarded the Gold Prize for Interactive Presentation (IP). His engaging and technically rich presentation was recognized as the most outstanding interactive contribution at the event.

The presentation of the LUPEX rover development overview was followed by an enthusiastic Q&A session, which lasted two minutes longer than the time allotted for the presentation. The timekeeper made a special arrangement to extend the Q&A for another two minutes, but time ran out halfway through the session. I was very pleased to see the high level of interest in LUPEX amongst the participants, which motivated me even more. I dedicate this award to all the members of the joint Japan-India team who have worked tirelessly on the study, design and testing from year of 2017 to date.

On May 9, following GLEX2025, Mr. Kazuyoshi Kawasaki (Executive Advisor) and other LUPEX team members paid a courtesy visit to H.E. Ambassador Keiichi Ono at the Embassy of Japan in New Delhi.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of Japan–India cooperation in science and technology, and during the visit, we also introduced the LUPEX project as a symbol of this bilateral collaboration.

From May 13–14, the third face-to-face Technical Interchange Meeting (TIM) between ISRO and JAXA/MHI was held at ISRO Headquarters in Bengaluru. A 15-member Japanese delegation participated on site, engaging in detailed technical coordination for the LUPEX mission.

Earlier in March, LUPEX was officially approved as a project within ISRO.
At the TIM, Shri M. Ganesh Pillai, ISRO’s Scientific Secretary, praised the joint team’s accomplishments and emphasized the mission’s scientific and technical importance.
Dr. Tirtha Pratim Das, Director of ISRO’s Science Programme Office, highlighted progress in payload optimization, mission design, and communication architecture.
Shri G. Ravi Chandra Babu (ISRO Chandrayaan-5 / LUPEX Study Team Leader), and Mr. Dai Asoh (JAXA Project Manager) led the two-day sessions, with active discussions focusing on mission interfaces and planning.