Philippe Baptiste, President of the French Space Agency, Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), who is in India to participate in the Bengaluru Space Expo 2024, spoke to The Hindu on the sidelines of the event on a wide range of topics from celebrating 60 years of French-India space cooperation to the Gaganyaan and the TRISHNA missions.
Q. India and France have had a partnership of over six decades in space. How do you see this collaboration evolving?
A. It (India-France collaboration) is not only a great success of the past but an ongoing one. It started with our launchers, where we had a strong cooperation many decades ago. Then we also had a partnership in engines and Earth Observation and so on. It is an ongoing cooperation. We have many projects coming very soon for launching satellites in the domain of space exploration, and there is a lot of discussion in the areas of defence and security, especially in Space Situational Awareness.
Q. Any update on the Indo-French Thermal Infrared Imaging Satellite for High-resolution Natural Resource Assessment (TRISHNA) mission? When will it be launched?
A. TRISHNA, which is our next project together, is a very highly visible project. It is an infrared satellite project. It will greatly help to get information on climate, agriculture, drought forecasting and urban heat island monitoring. The project is going very well. We expect to launch the satellite in 2026.
Q. India and France in 2021 had signed an agreement for cooperation for the Gaganyaan mission. Could you please elaborate on the areas in which CNES is helping ISRO and how is it progressing?
A. We do have a bit of expertise in this area (human spaceflight) as we have been sending astronauts to space for several decades. With regard to the Gaganyaan programme, we are sharing knowledge, especially on space medicine, to understand the physiology of astronauts, to train them and so on. People from both India and France are going back and forth from Bengaluru and Toulouse sharing knowledge and expertise. We are sharing the latest state-of-the-art expertise with ISRO.
Q. India has lined up ambitious missions like the Chandrayaan-4 and Chandrayaan-5 which aim at bringing back samples from the moon. Is France keen to be part of this?
A. We are looking forward to these missions. We are very impressed by what you are doing in India, especially in lunar exploration. There is a lot of ambition and a lot of energy. We are looking forward to seeing close cooperation in these areas.
Published - September 18, 2024 05:37 pm IST
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