The European Space Agency would partner with Indian Space Research Organisation for India's unmanned mission to the moon under an agreement signed between the two agencies on Monday, official sources said.
The mission is planned for launch by 2007-2008, they added.
European instruments would be included on board India's mission to the moon, Chandrayaan-1, to be launched by India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.
PSLA would place the 525-kg satellite in 100-km polar orbit around the moon, the sources added.
The agreement, covered under an umbrella agreement already existing between ISRO and ESA, also includes an 'Impact Probe' in the mission for proving technological elements required for future landing missions, ISRO said.
Indian and ESA scientists would share the data from the European instruments under the agreement signed by ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair and ESA Director General Jean Jacques Dordain, an ISRO statement said.
The European contribution would include a low energy X-ray spectrometer called Chandrayaan Imaging X-ray spectrometer from Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, the United Kingdom, to measure elemental abundance distributed over the lunar surface.
Europe would contribute to the Indian experiment -- High Energy X-ray spectrometer and the European instruments would complement some main Indian experiments on Chandrayaan-1, the statement said.
