India’s moon mission to carry NASA instruments on board

India’s maiden moon mission Chandrayaan – 1 is expected to carry on board two American scientific instruments as part of Indo-US Civil Space Co-operation.

Though a decision had already been taken to send two American scientific instruments on board Chandrayaan – 1 at a meeting of Indo-US Joint Working Group on Civil Space Co-operation, a formal Memorandum of Understanding between Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and NASA in the regard will be signed in Bangalore next week.

According to ISRO officials, NASA will be sending a mini Synthetic Aperture Radar developed by Applied Physics Laboratory and a moon mineralogy mapper built by Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The meeting of the Indo-US Joint Working Group on Civil Space Co-operation had concluded that the lunar mission Chandrayaan –1 offered an outstanding opportunity for the two countries to begin co-operation in space exploration.

A five member delegation of top NASA officials led by its administrator Michael Griffin will arrive in Bangalore to sign the Memorandum of Understanding with ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair on May 9. Assistant Administrator for External Relations Michael O ‘Brein, who responsible for international relations for each NASA enterprise, administration of export control and international technology transfer programmes, will also be part of the delegation.

Apart from the two NASA payloads, Chandrayaan – 1 will also carry five Indian instruments, three developed by European Space Agency and one by Bulgarian Space Laboratory.

The Indian payloads include a Terrain Mapping Camera to produce a high resolution map of the moon, Lunar Laser Ranging Instrument to determine the surface topography and the Moon Impact Probe, developed by ISRO, that will be ejected at an orbit 100 kms around the moon.

Scheduled to be launched in 2008, the Chandrayaan – 1 will carry out a physical and chemical mapping of the moon from a 100 km lunar orbit.