SRIHARIKOTA/BANGALORE: A year after India signed its first space co-operation agreement with China, scientists from ISRO and the Chinese space agency have decided on six major areas of interest, including hosting of payloads on each other's satellites and inter-planetary missions.
TOI first reported in September 2014 that then ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan had said a joint working group will work out the modalities of the co-operation.
Speaking to TOI in Sriharikota last month, senior scientist BK Dadwal, who heads the Indians in the joint working group, said: "Hosting of payloads is one of the six talking points." He pointed out the two agencies have identified six points of contacts who will come up with concrete plans for each subject.
"We don't know which Chinese payloads we'll launch on which of our satellites and vice-versa. These details have to be worked out but we've identified six broad areas," he said, adding, "The other areas of interest are earth observation, disaster management, space science and navigation."
Despite China's distinction of being the third nation to send an astronaut into space after erstwhile Soviet Union and the US, its space exploration has not been as impressive as India's.
The agreement with India was signed in September 2014 just days before India put its Mars Orbiter Mission into the Martian orbit. China's Mars probe, Yinghuo 1, lost contact before leaving the Earth orbit.
India has been consistently increasing its foreign collaborations and with the six satellites that piggy rode with Astrosat, ISRO completed launching 50 foreign satellites.
ISRO has been most sought after by Germany, the first country to take India's help in launching a 45-kg satellite in 1999. Since 1999, nine German satellites and six UK satellites have been launched by ISRO.
