Indian Space Research Organisation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the US on Tuesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the inclusion of two US scientific instruments on board India's mission to the Moon 'Chandrayaan-1'.
ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair and NASA Administrator Michael Griffin at the ISRO Satellite Centre signed the MoU in Bangalore.
- Don't Miss! Ready to conquer space
The two instruments are Mini Synthetic Aperture Radar developed by Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University and funded by NASA and Moon Minerology Mapper jointly built by Brown University and Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA.
The US instruments were selected on the basis of merits of 16 firm proposals from all over the world received in response to ISRO's announcement of opportunity, ISRO said.
'Chandrayaan-1', scheduled for 2007-2008, is India's first unmanned scientific mission to the Moon.
The main objective of Mini SAR is to detect water in the permanently shadowed areas of Lunar-Polar region while that of Mapper is characterisation and mapping of minerals on the lunar surface.
NASA said data from the two instruments would contribute to its increased understanding of the lunar environment as it implements the Vision for Space Exploration, which calls for robotic and human exploration of the moon's surface.
The Indian payloads on board Chandrayaan-1 include a terrain mapping camera, a hyper spectral imager, a high-energy x-ray spectrometer, a lunar laser ranging instrument and a moon in pace probe.
Besides a Radiation Dose Monitor from Bulgaria, India's maiden voyage to moon will also carry three European instruments, making it truly an international mission.
