From Sputnik to Outright Cooperation?

NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency have reached an agreement to place two Russian scientific instruments on two NASA robotic missions. One of the instruments will be on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (heading to the moon), scheduled to launch in 2008, and the other on the Mars Science Laboratory, scheduled to launch in 2009. 

Russia is putting a Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector on the Lunar Reconnaissance orbiter to help search for evidence of water and determine the amount of radiation that astronauts will be exposed to on later manned missions. The instrument on the Mars Science Laboratory is a Neutron instrument that will measure hydrogen to help decipher how neutrons interact with the Martian surface. 

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