India To The Moon

Out Of The Blue
The Indian Space Research Organisation is sending 2 NASA Probes to the moon.

Marking India’s determination to keep up with spacefaring rivals such as China, Chandrayaan-1 will be propelled into space by a satellite launcher from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota, 100km north of Chennai.

The first Nasa chief to visit India in an official capacity since the early 1970s, Michael Griffin, signed the two memorandums of understanding covering the symbolic collaboration at a ceremony in Bangalore.

The US imposed sanctions on India’s space programme in 1998 following the country’s nuclear tests, but resumed the granting of export licences in September 2001 and has been looking to collaborate with India in developing space technologies. “There was a period of time between our nations where, because of nuclear proliferation issues and other factors, the ability to co-operate on technical matters was less strong than it is today,” Mr Griffin said after signing the deal.

The Indian Space Research Organisation said the two devices – a mini synthetic aperture radar (MiniSar) and a moon mineralogy mapper (M3) – were selected on merit from among 16 firm proposals received from around the world.

The main objective of the MiniSar is to detect water in the permanently shadowed areas of lunar polar regions, while the role of the M3 is to characterise and map minerals on the moon’s surface.

I've added a link to ISRO on the side bar. I wasn't aware they were that advanced.
If even India has a Space programme, why doesn't Australia have one? Seriously.