May 9, 2006, 13:28 GMT
New Delhi - India and the United States on Tuesday agreed to cooperate on Chandrayaan-1, the South Asian country's maiden mission to the moon, as the two sides inked a pact to include US payloads on the Indian spacecraft.
G. Madhavan Nair, Chairman, ISRO (India Space Research Organisation), (L) and Michael Griffin, Chief of NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) address the media after signing a Memorandum of Understanding between ISRO and NASA on the inclusion of two US scientific instruments on board India's first mission to moon, Chandrayaan-1, at the ISRO Satellite Centre, in Bangalore on Tuesday, 09 May 2006. Chandrayaan-1, scheduled during 2007-08, is India's first unmanned scientific mission to moon whose main objective is the investigation of the distribution of various minerals and chemical elements and high-resolution three-dimensional mapping of the entire lunar surface. EPA/MANJUNATH KIRAN
The Indian Space Research Organization and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the US finalized their first-ever joint venture by signing a pact on the inclusion of two US scientific instruments on board Chandrayaan (meaning moon-craft in Sanskrit).
These instruments are a Mini Synthetic Aperture Radar (Mini SAR) and Moon Mineralogy Mapper, a statement from the ISRO said.
The first payload will look for polar ice on the moon and the other will study the moon's surface mineral composition.
The MoU was signed by ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair and NASA Administrator Michael Griffin at the ISRO Satellite Centre in the southern city of Bangalore.
The US instruments were selected from among of 16 proposals from all over the world received in response to the ISRO's announcement of opportunity.
The two countries agreed on cooperation in the lunar mission during the visit of US President George W Bush to India in March.
'The inclusion of US instruments on Chandrayaan-1 has added fillip to the Indo-US cooperation in the space arena which dates back to the very beginning of the Indian space programme,' the ISRO stated.
Chandrayaan which is India's first unmanned scientific mission to moon, is scheduled to be launched during 2007-2008, the ISRO stated.
The main objective is the investigation of the distribution of various minerals and chemical elements and high-resolution three-dimensional mapping of the entire lunar surface.
The 89-million-dollar project is aimed at expanding scientific knowledge about the moon, upgrading India's technological capability and providing challenging opportunities for planetary research.
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