MOSCOW. March 6 (Interfax-AVN) - The first Indian astronaut will be able to land on the moon in 2025, said Shantan Dekor, an official with the Indian Space Research Organization.
"We will not be sending people to the Moon in the near future. We will send a satellite, which will work there for seven to ten days. We could probably send a person to the Moon in 2025," Dekor said on a televised linkup on Russian-Indian space cooperation in Moscow on Thursday.
Dekor spoke about some joint Indian-Russian space projects in te sphere of space exploration, which include joint satellite launches, manned spacecraft launches, the training of specialists, and participation in the programs Glonass-M and Glonass-K.
India is planning to spend some $1 billion on its space programs in 2009, Dekor said.