On December 8, India and Russia announced an agreement regarding deepening space cooperation between the two nations.
The agreement includes Russia's participation in the development of the Gagan Yang spacecraft and India's formal involvement in Russia's planned 2017 launch of the "Lunar-25" mission.
The Lunar-25 lander is 1.5 tons and will be sent into lunar orbit by a Union rocket; it does not have a rover but does feature a lander capable of on-site sampling.
However, the innovative aspect is that it is the first probe intended to land in the lunar polar regions, and with India's involvement, Russia will share lunar orbit transfer and landing technology with ISRO.
The combined budget for the Gagan Yang spacecraft and Lunar-25 is 640 million US dollars.
As soon as the news broke, everyone knew that India had definitely been taken advantage of.
