India, Russia complete design of Chandrayaan-2 project

India and Russia have finished the design of a second unmanned lunar orbiter to be sent to the Moon in 2011-2012, quoted the Indian Express newspaper.

"Right now, the design has been completed. We had a joint review with Russian scientists here", said Madhavan Nair, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in Bangalore.

Russia is responsible for the design and construction of a lander and a rover, which could collect samples of the lunar soil, analyze them and send the data back to Earth.

The ISRO and the Russian Federal Space Agency signed in November 2007 an agreement to work together on the Chandrayaan-2 project. The work started following the launch of India's first unmanned mission to the moon, the Chandrayaan-1, in October last year.

During the two-year mission, the remote-sensing satellite is expected to create a detailed three-dimensional map of the Moon's surface and investigate its chemical composition. The primary goal is the discovery of water, along with magnesium, aluminum, silicon and titanium, and the radioactive elements radon, uranium and thorium.