French agency to help Team Indus on its lunar project

The national space agency of France will ink a pact with the Bengaluru-based Team Indus on Monday, to mount cameras on the rover that the aerospace start-up plans to send to the moon this December.
●    The Centre National d’études Spatiales (CNES) of France will ink a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Team Indus, which is the lone participant from India in the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition to develop low-cost methods of robotic space exploration. 
●    The MoU will be signed during the visit of French foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault to Bengaluru.
●    The CNES will also strike a new partnership deal with the Indian Space Research Organization (Isro) for cooperation in satellite launch technology, during Ayrault’s visit to Bengaluru. 
●    ISRO chairman A S Kiran Kumar and CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall will sign the document. 
●    Ayrault, who also holds the portfolio for international development in the French government, will visit India from January 8 to 11.