NEW DELHI — American outsourcing to India is approaching a new frontier: outer space.
The two nations' space agencies signed an agreement Tuesday in India's high-tech hub of Bangalore to fly two U.S. lunar mapping instruments on India's unmanned mission to orbit the moon, scheduled for 2008.
Because sending a U.S. spacecraft to the moon again remains a possibility only in the distant future, NASA is taking advantage of India's invitation to piggyback on its space exploration. Indian media reported that NASA's instruments would ride for free.
The joint space venture is part of the Bush administration's effort to forge a close strategic partnership with India, which includes a proposed deal on civilian nuclear cooperation that is awaiting approval by Congress.
"There was a period of time between our nations where, because of nuclear proliferation issues and other factors, the ability to cooperate on technical matters was less strong than it is today," NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin told reporters after signing the deal with G. Madhavan Nair, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization.
President Bush's effort to resolve those issues "has contributed greatly to future possibilities and I'm happy to be a small part of that," added Griffin, the first NASA chief to visit India in 30 years.
India is in a new space race with neighboring economic giant China, which plans to send its own lunar orbiter to map the moon's surface in 2007, followed by a robotic rover by 2012. China became the third country to achieve manned spaceflight when it sent an astronaut to orbit the Earth in October 2003.
Under Tuesday's agreement with NASA, India's $89-million mission to orbit the moon for two years will include U.S. scientific payloads that will search for ice in polar areas under permanent shadow and map minerals on the moon's surface.
They will be among 15 to 20 instruments on the spacecraft, including five made in India, such as a moon impact probe that will crash onto the lunar surface. The European Space Agency plans to provide three more devices. A fourth will come from Bulgaria. The Indian spacecraft is expected to orbit 62 miles above the lunar surface.
Beyond improving ties with India, the Bush administration wants to prepare for the possibility of sending American astronauts back to the moon, as a steppingstone to any manned mission to Mars.
