American Chandrayaan scientist held for spying
By siliconindia   |   Wednesday, 21 October 2009, 14:49 IST   |    41 Comments
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American Chandrayaan scientist held for spying
Bangalore: A former U.S. government scientist, Stewart Nozette who was a co-investigator in India's Chandrayaan mission in finding evidence of water on the Moon, has been arrested on charges of spying for Israel by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI agents posed as Israeli intelligence officers in an undercover operation and found that Nozette was willing to give them classified information. Nozette worked on a NASA guest instrument flown onboard Chandrayaan to search for water hidden deep within the craters of the moon. The results from this instrument are yet to be revealed, while water found on the moon last month by NASA was thanks to a different instrument, the Moon Mineralogy Mapper. Indian officials in contact with U.S. scientists in relation to the country's maiden unmanned lunar mission have insisted that there was no compromise with ISROs security since he was not given access to any sensitive information during his visit to India as part of his collaboration with ISRO on Chandrayaan. Nozette, a PhD in planetary sciences, was contacted by an FBI undercover employee last month posing as a Mossad officer and invited for lunch at a hotel in Connecticut Avenue in Washington DC to part with details about sensitive U.S. satellite data for a sum. Nozette quoted a price which went into several thousand dollars. In its complaint filed by the FBI before a U.S. court, he is being accused of spying for Israel; and an unnamed country, which is being code-worded as 'Country A' in the 18 page charge sheet.

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