Taking the first few steps towards what could become a long-term relationship of cooperation, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on May 9 here with NASA on the US payload for Chandrayaan-1. Chandrayaan-1 is the first lunar mission of India to be completed in 2007-08.NASA chief Michael Griffin will be visiting ISRO to sign the MoU, under which NASA will provide two payloads — Miniature Synthetic Aperture Radar and Moon Mineralogy Mapper operating in 0.7-3 micrometre band. ‘‘The NASA chief will be arriving here on May 8 and we will sign the MoU the next day. We had invited many European and other countries to submit proposals and we will be carrying the payloads for free,’’ said ISRO spokesperson S Krishnamurthy.The main scientific objective of the mission is the physical and chemical mapping of the moon from 100-km lunar polar orbit. The PSLV will place the lunar spacecraft in a 240 kmX24000 km orbit and the spacecraft will use its own propulsion system for reaching the 100-km orbit around the moon. Besides the US, Chandrayaan-1 would have payloads from Bulgaria and European Space Agency (ESA). The 500-kg satellite (liftoff weight 1304 kg) will have a host of Indian payloads, taking up chemical mapping of the entire lunar surface, besides helping to prepare a three-dimensional atlas of regions of scientific interest.The Rs 386-crore maiden planetary exploration project of India was approved by the Government in September 2003. The data collected through the US, European and the Indian payloads will be shared among each other.
