June 2006
The space agencies of India
and United States on May 9
signed a historic agreement
to send two American
advanced scientific instruments
on board Chandrayaan-I, India’s
first moon mission, in 2008.
National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) Administrator
Michael Griffin and Indian Space
Research Organisation (ISRO)
Chairperson G. Madhavan Nair signed
the memorandum of understanding
(MoU) at the Indian space agency’s
satellite application centre in
Bangalore.
The two NASA instruments to be part of the Chandrayaan payloads are mini synthetic aperture radar (Mini SAR) and moon mineralogy mapper (M3). Mini SAR is being developed by the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University and funded by NASA, while M3 is being jointly built by Brown University and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of NASA. “The objective of SAR is to detect water in the permanently shadowed areas of lunar polar regions, while M3 will map the minerals on the lunar surface and study its characterisation,” Nair told reporters. Chandrayaan-I will be launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) at Sriharikota off the Andhra coast, using an advanced polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV), into a 240-24,000 km earth orbit and placed subsequently in a 100-km polar orbit around the moon, with its own propulsion system. Terming the agreement as one of the most important milestones between ISRO and NASA, Nair said the NASA Administrator Dr. Michael Griffin, right, and ISRO Chairman G. Madhavan Nair sign an agreement in Bangalore on May 9, to send two U.S. advanced scientific instruments on board Chandrayaan-I, India’s first moon mission, in 2008.
The international media covered the NASA-ISRO tie-up in a big way. For more stories visit the news sites www.abcnews.go.com, www.news.ft.com, www.latimes.com and www.bloomberg.com
The two NASA instruments to be part of the Chandrayaan payloads are mini synthetic aperture radar (Mini SAR) and moon mineralogy mapper (M3). Mini SAR is being developed by the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University and funded by NASA, while M3 is being jointly built by Brown University and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of NASA. “The objective of SAR is to detect water in the permanently shadowed areas of lunar polar regions, while M3 will map the minerals on the lunar surface and study its characterisation,” Nair told reporters. Chandrayaan-I will be launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) at Sriharikota off the Andhra coast, using an advanced polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV), into a 240-24,000 km earth orbit and placed subsequently in a 100-km polar orbit around the moon, with its own propulsion system. Terming the agreement as one of the most important milestones between ISRO and NASA, Nair said the NASA Administrator Dr. Michael Griffin, right, and ISRO Chairman G. Madhavan Nair sign an agreement in Bangalore on May 9, to send two U.S. advanced scientific instruments on board Chandrayaan-I, India’s first moon mission, in 2008.
The international media covered the NASA-ISRO tie-up in a big way. For more stories visit the news sites www.abcnews.go.com, www.news.ft.com, www.latimes.com and www.bloomberg.com
