Monday, June 27 2005 14:34 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bangalore: The European Space Agency (ESA) would partner in India's unmanned mission to the Moon, Chandrayaan-1, planned for 2007 or early 2008, a top Indian Space official announced today (Jun 27, 2005).

"We were trying to make the final choices. Out of that, European payloads were under discussion and we have finalised it," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman G Madhavan Nair told reporters in Bangalore.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the European participation would be signed this afternoon, he said on the sidelines of "International Conferences on Planetary Exploration and Space Law" organised by The Astronautical Society of India and the International Academy of Astronautics.

The Chandrayaan-1 would place a spacecraft weighing about 525 kg around 100 km orbit of the Moon and enable high resolution chemical, mineralogical and photogeological mapping of the lunar surface.

The MoU relates "mainly to the participation of the European scientific community in our Chandrayaan", he said.

On the US space agency's participation in the Moon mission, Nair said discussions were underway and it might take a shape in the next couple of months.

Nair said India had also agreed to cooperate with Russia. "We have to restore the navigation constellations. In that process, there are two objectives. One is Russian built spacecraft to be launched from GSLV and another one... jointly we will build the spacecraft for joint launch from here." It was expected to happen in two to three years.

The Governments of India and Russia had signed an agreement on cooperation in the joint development, operation and utilisation of the Russian navigation system, GLONASS, in December.

He said an agreement had already been signed for the launch of Italy's "Agile" satellite from India's launch vehicle PSLV-C8. The 360 kg Agile spacecraft is expected to be launched next year under a commercial contract.

"Now, the Russian aircraft will also be on our launcher. Some more proposals, we have submitted. As and when they mature, we will let you know."

In his speech, Nair said India also planned to launch Astrosat satellite in the next two or two-and-a-half-years. Astrosat mission is conceived as a national project involving academic institutions to enable multi-wavelength studies of a variety of celestial sources and phenomena.

ESA Director General Dr Jean-Jacques told the conference, "We are close to signing an agreement with India on Galileo European satellite radionavigation programme."

The two conferences are being attended by about 225 delegates, 75 from abroad, including USA, China, Japan, Canada, France, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Indonesia.