India and Russia signed Joint lunar research....

Taking their technological cooperation to new heights, India and Russia today signed a ten-year pact for the joint lunar research involving the launches of spacecraft to the Moon using Indian launch vehicles.

The agreement signed on the sidelines of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's official visit by ISRO Chief Madhavan Nair and head of Russia's Federal Space
Agency "Roskosmos" Anatoly Perminov provides for the joint development of lunar orbiter, lander and rover and their launch with the help of GSLV from Indian space centre.

"The first mission will be solely Russian, but the second will be carried out jointly with India," General Director of Lavochkin Spacecraft Design Bureau Georgy Polishchuk told reporters.
According to Polishchuk, Russia would launch an unmanned Luna-Glob orbiter mission to the Moon in 2010. The second mission involving the landing of a new-generation 400-kg Lunokhod unmanned rover on the Moon will start in 2011.

Courtesy:news.digitaltoday.in
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