ESA to intensify cooperation with ISRO
ESA’s Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain and a delegation of ESA experts in various disciplines is taking part in The 58th International Astronautical Congress (IAC 2007).
During the congress, a series of top level meetings will involve him and other key players in the field, ranging from bilateral meetings between Heads of Space Agencies (US, Russia, Japan, China Canada and, in particular, India) to specific meetings at working level with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) representatives. The aim is to present on-going and planned activities and to identify areas of possible future cooperation beyond the fields of Space and Earth Sciences, in which cooperation between ESA and India is already a reality.
The first cooperation agreement between ESA and ISRO was signed in 1978 and has subsequently been renewed four times. The latest renewal is of January 2007, for a period of five years.
The first milestone in the development of the relations between the two organisations dates back to over 25 years ago when ISRO was selected to provide a satellite to be launched on the third qualification launch of Ariane: India’s first telecommunication satellite, APPLE, was successfully launched together with ESA’s Meteosat 2 on 19 June 1981. Since then, India has turned to Ariane for several more launches.
Chandrayaan-1, India’s first lunar mission slated for launch in the first quarter of 2008 on board an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PLSV )launcher, is a more recent example of bilateral cooperation that will see three European instruments flying on board India’s first scientific mission to the Moon under an Agreement signed in 2005.
India has built and launched 12 Earth Observation satellites (more than any other space faring country). Earth Observation activities are managed mainly by ISRO and the National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) based in Hyderabad. An agreement between ESA and NRSA of 1993 allowed the latter to receive ESA’s ERS-1 radar data, and it was extended in 1995 to cover ERS-2 data. Exchange of data between Indian EO satellites such as IRS P6/Ressourcesat-1 and the future Risat-1 and ESA satellites such Envisat and the upcoming Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity mission (SMOS) are either already on-going or foreseen.
India is a member of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and, since 2002, party to the International Charter on “Space and major Disasters” which was initiated in October 2000 by ESA and the French Space Agency (CNES).
India has recently outlined its ambitions for its future space activities, including a manned space programme under evaluation as well as exploration activities which are high in ISRO’s agenda. In January 2007 India launched an experimental space capsule (SRE-1) which was successfully recovered after orbiting for 12 days around the Earth. All this may open new cooperation opportunities and give rise to new shared efforts between ISRO and ESA.
In view of these outstanding accomplishments, India is considered as an important space-faring nation, and ESA fosters closer relationships with ISRO to explore further cooperation in order to support and diversify European space programmes.
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