ISRO
and NASA Sign MOU Mr G Madhavan Nair, Chairman, ISRO, and Dr Michael Griffin, Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of USA signed Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) on May 9, 2006 at ISRO Satellite Centre, Bangalore, on the inclusion of two US Scientific instruments on board Indias first mission to Moon, Chandrayaan-1. The instruments are NASA funded Mini Synthetic Aperture Radar (MiniSAR) developed by Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University and Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3), jointly built by Brown University and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of NASA.
On the signing of MOUs, Dr Griffin said It is my hope and belief that as we extend the reach of human civilization throughout the solar system, the United States and India will be partners on many more technically challenging and scientifically rewarding projects. Further he said I very much look forward to the opportunity to see first hand Indias impressive space facilities, to meet with your scientists and engineers and to learn more about your remarkable work. Chandrayaan-1,
scheduled during 2007-2008, is Indias first scientific mission
to moon. The
Indian payloads on board Chandrayaan-1 include: a Terrain Mapping Camera
(TMC), a The two US instruments, MiniSAR and M3, were selected on the basis of merit out of 16 firm proposals from all over the world received in response to ISROs announcement of opportunity. The main objective of MiniSAR is to detect water in the permanently shadowed areas of lunar polar regions. The objective of M3 is the characterisation and mapping of minerals on the lunar surface.
Earlier, three instruments Chandrayaan-1 Imaging X-Ray Spectrometer (CIXS) from Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK, developed with contribution from ISRO Satellite Centre; Near Infra-Red Spectrometer (SIR-2) from Max Planck Institute, Germany and Sub keV Atom Reflecting Analyser (SARA) from Swedish Institute of Space Physics developed in collaboration with ISROs Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre were selected from the European Space Agency besides a RAdiation DOse Monitor (RADOM) from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. India-US
cooperation in Space: India
conducted the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE) in
the mid 1970s for In the field of remote sensing, India was one of the first countries to establish a reception station for receiving data from NASAs Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS), later renamed as LANDSAT. This facilitated India to gain experience in the reception, processing and application of space-based remote sensing data. A number of joint experiment projects in remote sensing were also undertaken using LANDSAT data with the participation of end users. Later, India designed and built its own operational Indian Remote Sensing satellites and established National Natural Resources Management System for the application of data from these satellites. Today, India has the worlds largest constellation of civilian remote sensing satellites to provide data in a variety of spatial resolutions and spectral bands which is being received by several ground stations from all over the world including USA that meet the requirements of various applications in resources management. In
1997, the Department of Space (DOS) and the Department of Science and
Technology (DST) from India and NASA and National Oceanographic and
Atmospheric Administration from US signed a Memorandum of Understanding
for joint research in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.
In
November 2001, the Prime Minister of India and the President of United
States issued a During his visit to india, Dr Griffin visited ISROs Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre at Thiruvananthapuram and Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota. |