India has decided to go it alone in its second lunar mission, the Chandrayaan-2, which was originally proposed as an Indo-Russian venture. This was disclosed by Mr S.V.S. Murty of the Planetary Exploration Group of the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), an institution under the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Dr. Murty was speaking on India’s lunar and Mars missions at the ongoing workshop on exoplanets at the laboratory. According to an agreement signed on November 12, 2007 between ISRO and Roskosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency, ISRO had the primary responsibility to provide both the orbiter and the rover, while Roskosmos was to design and build the lander for this combined orbiter-rover-lander mission. However, following the failure in December 2011 of Roskosmos’ Phobos-Grunt mission, there was a delay in the construction of the Russian lander.
Source: Hindu
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