Excelsior Correspondent
New Delhi, May 25: Sweden Space chief, Peter Egardt, who in addition to being Chairman of Swedish National Space Board (SNSB) also happens to be the Governor of the important Swedish province of Uppsala, called on Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh.
Soon after his arrival here on a two-day visit to New Delhi, Peter Egardt held a 45 minute one-to-one meeting with Dr Jitendra Singh.
Dr Jitendra Singh, in his capacity as Minister in-charge Department of Space, shared with Peter Egardt the details regarding the various on-going and perspective programmes to be taken up jointly by Indian Space Research Programme (ISRO) and Swedish National Space Board (SNSB).
Referring to three decades of space technology collaboration between the two countries, Dr Jitendra Singh told Peter Egardt that during the last three years, under the personal patronage and inspiration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India’s space programme has received a special impetus which is now being acknowledged even by the countries like USA and Russia which were amongst the earliest to venture into space missions. He disclosed that pictures received from the “Mangalyaan” are now being obtained by even NASA, whereas the South-Asian satellite launched recently by Prime Minister Modi is offering vital inputs to all the countries in the region. He also informed that under the Modi Government, India’s space programme has been made applicable to a wide range of infrastructural development projects including building of roads and bridges as well as mapping of soil etc in agriculture sector.
Dr Jitendra Singh appreciated the Swedish Government’s initiative in having sent a high-level delegation of Swedish National Space Board (SNSB) to ISRO in January last year with the motive of exploring new areas of innovation through launch services, cross utilization of ground stations, satellite navigation, atmospheric research and future exploration missions. As a follow up to this visit, he recalled that in May last year, Chairman ISRO AS Kiran Kumar had written to Swedish Ambassador in India for proposals for some of the common areas of interest including green propulsion technologies and GNSS remote sensing.
Peter Egardt appreciated the warm response and enthusiastic interest shown by Dr Jitendra Singh to the space programme much more wider based with universal applications. He also extended to Dr Jitendra Singh an invitation to visit Sweden and spare some time to interact with scientists at Swedish Space Centre (SSC).
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