By Arun Kumar, IANS
Washington : India and the US plan to cooperate in the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes, including in the area of human space flights, under a new agreement between their space agencies.
A framework agreement establishing the terms for future cooperation between the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and US space agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was signed Friday at the Kennedy Space Centre by ISRO chairman G. Madhavan Nair and NASA administrator Michael Griffin.
“I am honoured to sign this agreement with the India Space Research Organization,” Griffin said. “This agreement will allow us to cooperate effectively on a wide range of programmes of mutual interest.”
“India has extensive space-related experience, capabilities and infrastructure, and will continue to be a welcome partner in NASA’s future space exploration activities,” he added.
According to the framework agreement, the two agencies will identify areas of mutual interest and seek to develop cooperative programmes or projects in Earth and space science, exploration, human space flight and other activities.
The agreement replaces a soon-to-expire agreement signed Dec 16, 1997, which fostered bilateral cooperation in the areas of Earth and atmospheric sciences.
In addition to a long history of cooperation in Earth science, NASA and ISRO also are cooperating on India’s first, mission to the moon, Chandrayaan-1, which will be launched later this year.
NASA is providing two of the 11 instruments on the spacecraft: the moon mineralogy mapper instrument and the miniature synthetic aperture radar instrument.
The agreement comes two days after Nair told a Washington think tank that though India and the US enjoy good relations on the political front, there is need to expedite the process of moving forward on space cooperation and space commerce.
“India believes that space is the next frontier and international cooperation rather than competition in this field will be the future,” he said speaking on India’s space programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Nair said despite hiccups in cooperation caused by US’ export control regulations there have been some good signs. He gave the instance of the recent success with Raytheon on GPS and the soured deal with another company on semiconductor fabrication.
“The process is rather slow and I wish it was faster,” Nair said. “There are pluses and minuses. But we have to be patient… we have to convince,” he said noting, “At the political level, there is a good understanding.”
The two countries were trying to move forward on the understanding reached between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George W. Bush in 2005 to strengthen relations in space cooperation and space commerce.
Apart from India’s moon mission, Nair said a probe of Mars by India was very much on the agenda.
“Our scientific community would like to see what new things we can find. It is not just for the sake of sending a probe to Mars. Yes, we have an agenda by 2012, by then we should have a Mars mission,” he said.