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[Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe]

India Awaits Approval For Chandrayan Lunar Mission

India has announced that it plans to explore the Moon and will send an unmanned probe there by 2008

Mumbai, India (SPX) Dec 02, 2005
India is awaiting clearance from the Bush administration for finalising an American payload on top of India's first ever unmanned moon mission, Chandrayan, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman G Madhavan Nair said on Friday.
"We have already selected two (European) payloads for Chandrayan and we have also got interest from NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) to place their payload in our moon mission. But for this we need some government clearances from the US side," Nair told reporters here.

NASA plans to deploy mini-synthetic aperture radar (MSAR) and spectrometer with 0.3 micron to 0.9-micron capabilities in the Indian spacecraft for the experiments.

The $89 million project is India's first unmanned moon mission the orbiter is expected to last two years.

Full story here: www.spacedaily.com/news/lunar-05zzza.html

here: onlypunjab.com/fullstory2k5-insight--status-15-newsID-25148.html

and here: www.spacetoday.org/India/IndiaMoonFlights.html
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[Maddad]

NASA couldn't wipe it's bottom for less than $100 million.

[starbux]

Hope India gets clearance soon. Placing an orbiter around the moon will be quite an acheivement.