6 of the 11 instruments being carried are of foreign origin. Of the
6, it would appear 3 are from the US, 1 is from Germany and 1 is from
Bulgaria and 1 more from some other place.

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Chandrayaan-I to embark on moon mission on April 9 next year

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will launch its
ambitious and maiden mission to the moon, Chandrayaan-I, from the
Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota on April nine next year.

"We are looking for a launch on April nine," M Annadurai, Project
Director of Chandrayaan-I said adding that a launch windows are
available for the next two days in case the launch does not happen on
that day.

ISRO is racing to meet the deadline and plans to integrate all the 11
instruments, including six from foreign partners, on board the mission
before the year end.

"Two instruments one from the US and another from Bulgaria were
integrated last week," Annadurai told PTI here.

The two payloads which have been integrated are the moon mineralogy
mapper, a joint project of Brown University and NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, and Radiation Dose Monitor Experiment (Radom) from the
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

Two more payloads for the lunar orbiter -- the Miniature Synthetic
Aperture Radar (mini-SAR), a joint project of Applied Physics
Laboratory at the John Hopkins University and the Naval Air Warfare
Centre, and SIR-2 from Germany's Max Planck Institute.

The German payload will be first calibrated at ISRO's Space
Application Centre at Ahmedabad before it is integrated with the main
orbiter in next 15 days.

The mini-SAR will be used to map the lunar polar ice and the data
generated from it will help in estimating water content in the moon's
polar region.

Annaudurai said that there were very little chances of any change in
the launch date.

In event of a delay due to problems detected during the countdown, the
launch may take place in the next two to three days. In case of more
serious problems efforts will be to identify the slots every 14 days
and the next probable launch could be on April 23, 2008, Annadurai
said.

"We want to make the Chandrayaan operational by July so that we get
two full years for all the planned experiments," he said.

On Chandrayaan-II, Annadurai said that ISRO would like to accommodate
newer international partners in project.

"We had selected the partners for Chandrayaan-I purely on merit of the
space science expertise offered by them and that will be our criteria
once again," Annadurai said.