Chandrayan I (Chandra=Moon, yan=Ship) is the name for a mission of the Indian space agencies to send an unmanned spacecraft to the Moon which will then take a polar orbit around. The spacecraft will be launched by a modified version of India’s indigenous Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.

The remote sensing satellite will weigh 1050 kg (523 kg initial orbit mass and 440 kg dry mass) and carries high resolution remote sensing equipment for visible, near infrared, soft and hard X-ray frequencies. During two years, it is supposed to survey the lunar surface to produce a complete map of its chemical characteristics and 3-dimensional topography. Especially the polar regions are of interest, as they might contain water ice.

In September 2004, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) announced in a press statement that planning has now made enough progress that they are confident that the mission will take place in 2007 or 2008.

They estimate the cost to be only INR 3.8 billion (US$ 83 million). The idea of a manned mission had been ruled out as considered to be too costly (INR 100 billion = US$ 2.2 billion).

On March 17 Europian Space Agency Council approved a cooperation with ISRO for Chandrayaan-1. Under this cooperation, ESA will coordinate and support the provision of three instruments: CIXS-2, the Chandrayaan-1 Imaging X-Ray Spectrometer; SARA, a Sub-keV Atom Relecting Analyzer; and SIR-2, a Near-Infrared Spectrometer. It will also support the hardware for the High-Energy X-ray Spectrometer (HEX). Direct ESA in-kind contributions are also foreseen under this historical agreement. In return, all data resulting from the instruments will be made immediately available to ESA Member States through ESA.

External links

• Chrandrayaan-1 Announcement of Opportunity and home page from ISRO
• European Space Agency to cooperate with India's first lunar mission