NASA Tags on to India's Moon Mission

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<center><h3>NASA Tags on to India's Moon Mission</h3></center>

 

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<center>Lunar signal</center>

 

 

Bangalore, Feb. 26: Nasa is planning to ride piggyback on India’s unmanned mission to the moon in 2007.

 

 

 

The US space agency figures among organisations keen to join the Indian Space Research Organisation’s orbiter, Chandrayan.

 

 

 

“We have got a request from Nasa to place their payload in our moon mission,” P.S. Goel, director of Isro’s satellite centre, said today.

 

 

 

“We have begun discussions with them, but its implementation will depend on bilateral agreements (between India and the US),” he added.

 

 

 

Nasa wants to fly a set of instruments, including a Mini-Synthetic Aperture Radar on board Isro’s orbiter. The Indian space agency has picked a payload from Bulgaria to monitor radiation in outer space, Goel said.

 

 

 

Isro’s 525-kg orbiter, scheduled for launch by the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) in 2007, will hover at 100 km over the moon to garner data on mineral resources and water. The scientific data will also help address questions on life in other parts of the universe and the origin of the universe, Isro scientists said.

 

 

 

Isro chairman G. Madhavan Nair said design studies for Chandrayan as well as a 34-metre antenna have been completed. The antenna will be designed by the Electronics Corporation of India Ltd and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Nair added.

 

 

 

The organisation will acquire 100 acres outside Bangalore to establish the ground station for receiving data from the moon mission, he said.

 

 

 

On the milestones lying ahead this year, the Isro chairman said four satellites — two from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota and two from Kourou, French Guyana — will be placed in orbit.

 

 

 

Isro’s advanced remote sensing satellite Cartosat-1 will be hoisted into space by PSLV from Sriharikota in April. “The satellite has been integrated and final tests are being conducted. The launch vehicle is also under progress,” Nair said.

 

 

 

Insat-4A, for DTH applications, will be placed in orbit by an Ariane rocket of the European launch agency from Kourou in French Guyana in May or June.

 

 

 

Cartosat-2, a remote sensing satellite from Sriharikota, and the Insat-4C communication satellite from Kourou will follow in the second half of the year, the Isro chairman said.