The Hindu : Front Page : ISRO ties up with ESA for moon mission

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jun 28, 2005

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Front Page

ISRO ties up with ESA for moon mission

BANGALORE: The European Space Agency (ESA) will partner with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for India's unmanned mission to the Moon, planned for launch by 2007-2008. ISRO Chairman G. Madhavan Nair and ESA Director-General Jean Jacques Dordain signed an agreement to this effect on Monday.

European instruments would be included on board the mission to the Moon, "Chandrayaan-1," to be launched by India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle which would place the 525-kg satellite in a 100-km polar orbit around the Moon.

The pact, covered under an umbrella agreement between the ISRO and the ESA, also includes an "Impact Probe" in the mission for proving technological elements required for future landing missions, the ISRO said.

Indian and ESA scientists would share the data from the European instruments. The European contribution would include a low energy X-ray spectrometer called the Chandrayaan Imaging X-ray spectrometer from the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, U.K., to measure elemental abundance distributed over the lunar surface.

Near infra-red spectrometer from the Max Planck Institute of Aeronomie, Germany, would also be included to detect and measure lunar mineral abundances. A High Energy X-ray spectrometer and the European instruments would complement some main Indian experiments on "Chandrayaan-1." — PTI

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