How will India-USA space cooperation be
- ARTICLE
- How will India-USA space cooperation be
Dec 03, 2016
How will India-USA space cooperation be useful to India? What is the most important event in this field?
Antrix Corporation Ltd, the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), will launch nine micro satellites (each weighing around 100 kg) using the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), over a year.
It is the first time for India to launch American satellites from an Indian spaceport. ISRO and NASA already set up a joint working group for Mars exploration.
India’s Moon and Mars missions brought global acknowledgement of ISRO’s ability to develop and deploy cost-effective technologies.
In 2008, the ‘foreign’ payload on board India’s Chandrayaan-1 Moon mission included two American instruments: The Mini Synthetic Aperture Radar and the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (which helped determine the existence of water ice under the lunar surface).
And in 2013, by a coincidence, the US spacecraft Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission (MAVEN) entered the Martian orbit just two days before India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) did. NASA’s deep space network provided space navigation and tracking support to MOM, and now ISRO and NASA routinely share data and imagery from these spacecraft.
The two countries are working out a plan for cooperation over deep space exploration…on missions beyond Mars. Potential areas of cooperation include manned spaceflight.
The US played a key role in the early Sixties in establishing the sounding rocket programme. In subsequent years, NASA helped ISRO in satellite broadcasting and remote sensing
Benefits for India are the money such launches earn. It helps us technologically and militarily. India and the US could cooperate in areas like space situational awareness (SSA) - crucial for spaceflight safety and for preventing collisions in space.
Stronger India-US space ties bode well for multilateral cooperation, too.
It could see India play a major role in the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS).