India's Prime Minister
Announces Mission To Moon
Launch of Indian Space Research Organization
unmanned exploratory craft expected by 2008
 NEW YORK (16 August 2003) — Prime
Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has announced that India will go
forward with plans to launch an unmanned spacecraft into Lunar
orbit.
During his Independence Day address
to the nation on Friday (15 August), Shri Vajpayee announced that
the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) will send a
525-kilogram satellite into a polar orbit 100 kilometers above the
Moon. The mission spacecraft, dubbed Chandrayan-1, is projected to
be ready for launch by 2008, and is expected to send back imagery
of the moon's surface using high-resolution remote sensing
instruments in the visible, near infrared, low and high-energy
X-ray regions.
Provisions will also be made to carry
scientific instruments from other countries aboard the craft. The
orbiting satellite will be launched into space aboard a modified
version of India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.
The estimated price tag of the
Chandrayan-1 mission is $100-million (USD).
 "Today,
India is confident of undertaking a complex space mission because
of its indigenously developed launch vehicle and spacecraft
capabilities," a statement from ISRO said. "Chandrayan-1
is expected to be the forerunner of more ambitious planetary
missions in the years to come, including landing robots on the
moon and visits by Indian spacecraft to other planets in the solar
system."
Complete
text of ISRO announcement
Official ISRO Website
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