New Delhi: Chandrayaan-3 mission is attracting wider international collaborations for India, Union Minister of State for Space, Dr Jitendra Singh said here today. He referred to a meeting with a high-level Mauritius delegation led by Minister for Information Technology, Communication and Innovation (MITCI), Darsanand Deepak Balgob, to discuss the proposal for a Joint India-Mauritius Satellite.
India and Mauritius also agreed to utilize Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) ground station set up in Mauritius to include third-party missions including the European Space Agency and an amendment to the existing MoU is planned to be signed to facilitate such collaboration.
Mauritius has hosted ISRO’s ground station for tracking satellite and launch vehicles for more than 3 decades and currently, this ground station is continuously manned with two antennas (of 11 m diameter) operated in Mauritius.
Dr Singh said, India has supported Mauritius by establishing a remote sensing centre in 1999 and also by providing satellite data pertaining to Mauritius territory and officials from Mauritius have benefited from the training courses offered by Indian institutes on space technology applications.
Dr Singh and Balgobin also discussed areas like space cooperation through (i) sharing of earth observation satellite data; (ii) Developing an ‘India-Mauritius space portal’ with satellite data, geospatial layers and value-added services pertaining to Mauritius; (iii) Initiating discussion for space industry level collaboration.
Balgobin earlier visited ISRO facilities in Bengaluru on August 17, 2023, where he was briefed about the technical details and application potentials of the proposed India – Mauritius joint satellite.
Dr Singh said by signing up for the Artemis Accords during the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the United States, India has demonstrated its capability to collaborate in the Space sector with other nations of the world as an equal partner.
– global bihari bureau
