from daijiworld's special correspondent

Panaji, Sep 27: India's quest to explore moon, Chandrayaan 1 mission, will leave in the early of 2008, Dr Jitendranath Goswami, heading the project, stated.

Dr Goswami said that date for the mission would be finalized later on as ``eclips'' are scheduled in February 2008. "The mission will leave just after the eclipse….It will leave by March but for sure it will leave in early 2008," he told reporters after participating in the lecture organized by National Institute of Oceanography (NIO).

This Rs 400-crore budgeted unmanned mission will have two research instruments from NASA and a Bulgarian payload on it. Besides, Rs 300-crores for mission and Rs 100-crores for new 30 metres deep space networking.

When asked whether collaboration with US represents a thaw in the mission, Dr Goswami said that India looks at collaboration in the planetary missions and ISRO is open for such scientific collaborations. "We cannot forget that India had few of its first due to US… We had our first educational TV because American satellite was stationed over India," he explained.

He said that Chandrayaan 2 would be a reality in 2011-12 and it too would be unmanned mission. "Before sending man we need to develop lot of technologies… For that instance, manned mission is just a thought," Goswami explained.
Talking about Chandrayaan 1, Goswami said that it is a remote sensing mission with the objective of micrological, chemical and geological mapping at a resolution better than previous and currently planned mission.