January 09, 2002
'13'
INDIA JOINS INTERNATIONAL CHARTER ON SPACE AND DISASTER
ISRO AND ESA COOPERATION FOR PEACEFUL USE OF OUTER SPACE
India today signed the International Charter on Space and major disasters envisaging cooperation in the use of space facilities for natural or technological disasters. The Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Dr. K. Kasturirangan signing the convention said that data from Indian remote sensing satellites will be provided for the purposes of disaster relief. The Charter was mooted by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the French National space agency, as an initiative by space organisations to provide earth observation data to disaster relief agencies for emergency operations. The Canadian space agency is another organisation that has already joined the charter.
ISRO also signed a cooperative agreement with the European Space Agency for renewing arrangements to further cooperation between the two agencies in the peaceful uses of outer space. Dr. Kasturirangan said that this umbrella agreement will enable both ISRO and ESA to carry out programmes of common concern in space science and applications including communication, remote sensing, meteorology and navigation, besides life and material sciences under micro-gravity conditions. A number of Indian satellites have been launched on board ESA’s launch vehicle ‘Ariane’ since 1981.