NASA signs pact with ISRO for moon mission

Taking the Indo-US space ties to a new high, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) signed an agreement with Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) on Tuesday to send two US scientific payloads onboard India’s maiden moon mission Chandrayaan – 1.

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair at the ISRO Satellite Centre in Bangalore on Tuesday.

According to the agreement, India’s unmanned mission to moon Chandrayaan – 1, scheduled for launch in 2008, will carry on board NASA’s Mini Synthetic Aperture Radar developed by its Applied Physics Laboratory and Moon Mineralogy Mapper built by its Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

While the main objective of the Mini Synthetic Aperture Radar is to detect water in the permanently shadowed areas of Lunar-Polar region, the Moon Mineralogy Mapper will carry out the task of mapping minerals on the lunar surface.

According to an ISRO official, the US scientific instruments will be part of the 15 to 20 instruments on board the Chandrayaan- 1, including eleven from India and three from the European Space Agency.

NASA’s scientific instruments were selected on the basis of merit among 16 other proposals ISRO received from all over the world in response to its announcement of the opportunity, ISRO official said.

Described as India’s most ambitious space mission till date, Chandrayaan – 1 will come near 100 kms above the moon’s surface and carry out nine experiments including a reconnaissance of the dark side of the moon. “Chandrayaan -1 is essentially a scientific mission to map the moon’s geophysical features and chemical composition of its surface so as to understand its origin”, according to the Programme Director of Chandrayaan-1.

Speaking to reporters after signing an agreement with ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said US President George Bush, during his visit to India a couple of months ago, had held talks with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on strengthening co-operation between the countries in space exploration and satellite navigation, besides earth science. “This is a small effort in the direction”, Griffin told reporters.

A five-member delegation from NASA led by Griffin is expected to hold talks with ISRO officials on extending Indo-US co-operation in space exploration. NASA’s assistant administrator Michael F’ O Brien will discuss with Indian space scientists the experiments to be conducted by the two US instruments on board Chandrayaan – 1.

Just as Chandrayaan – 1 is projected to create a landmark in the history of space research for India, the visit of NASA administrator to India, the first in the last three decades, is expected to open new vistas in Indo-US space co-operation.