Excelsior Correspondent
LONDON, Apr 27: Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; Minister of State (Independent Charge) Earth Sciences; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh today undertook a visit to the Satellite Applications Catapult at Oxford and witnessed a technical demonstration by Chief Technical Officer Paul Febvre at Harwell, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom.
The Satellite Applications Catapult is one of nine Catapults, uniquely established to transform the UK’s capability for innovation in specific areas and to help drive future economic growth. It is helping organisations make use of, and benefit from, satellite technologies, and bring together multi-disciplinary teams to generate ideas and solutions in an open innovation environment. The aim of the Catapult Centre is to support UK industry by accelerating the growth of satellite applications and to contribute to capturing a 10% share of the global space market by 2030.
On his visit to the Catapult Centre, Dr Jitendra Singh described India as a key Global Player in the Space sector and reiterated that under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is keen to take its Space cooperation with the United Kingdom (UK) to newer heights. He further appreciated the work done by Satellite Applications Catapult and said that Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), India’s premier space agency is looking forward to collaborating with the Catapult Centre and wider space sector of the United Kingdom.
Dr Jitendra Singh said that under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Space Sector in India is emerging as a major foreign exchange earner through the launch of a large number of foreign satellites. He further stated that India has launched 385 foreign satellites so far, out of which 353 were launched in the last 8 years under this Government, which is around 90 percent of all launches.
The Minister said that ISRO has gradually become one of the six largest space agencies in the world. India has one of the largest fleets of communication satellites (INSAT) and remote sensing (IRS) satellites. These satellites cater to the increasing demand for fast and reliable communication and earth observation respectively, he added.
In order to attract and nurture the young academia with innovative ideas / research aptitude for carrying out research and developing the Academia-Industry ecosystem for Space Technology, the Minister said that ISRO has set-up a Space Technology Incubation Centre in 6 regions of the Country viz. Central, East, North, North-East, South and West. This will enable the young academia to realise their innovative ideas / research aptitude into space grade components/elements which can be utilised for space applications, and guide them towards setting-up the future start-ups.
On his visit, Dr Jitendra Singh also announced India UK Space Parks partnerships. He urged the space parks in the UK to collaborate with Space parks in India.
Dr Jitendra Singh said, India’s other flagship space programmes also include Human Space Flight Centre or what we call in India as the Gaganyaan project under which we are planning to send our first crewed flight to space in 2024.
Dr Jitendra Singh said, development of the Space sector is one of the priority areas for the leaders of both India and the UK and added that India started its space journey seven decades back from scratch and is today acknowledged to be a leading space power. He said, the highlight of India’s journey has been its thrust on indigenous development through dedication and hard work of its scientists guided by the commitment of the leaders.
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