The Hindu Business Line : Brazil, India forge closer space ties

By another broad agreement, it also plans to launch a small satellite on an Indian launcher and also set up a ground station in that country to receive earth observation data from Resourcesat-1, the remote sensing satellite launched by ISRO last October.

While the Brazilian micro-satellite is meant for atmospheric studies, the details are yet to be worked out, an ISRO spokesman said.

This is part of an agreement on a broad co-operation programme signed by the ISRO Chairman, Mr G. Madhavan Nair, and the President of Brazil's space agency AEB, Mr Luiz Bevilacqua, in New Delhi on Sunday, according to an ISRO release here.

The two agencies plan to pursue joint research in space and atmospheric sciences and exchange proposals for remote sensing applications.

ISRO said the framework agreement would strengthen the ties established under an MoU of March 2002. The two agencies have held several discussions to identify areas of mutual interest.

The External Affairs Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, and his Brazilian counterpart, Mr Celso Amorim, signed the framework agreement in New Delhi.

The Brazilian President, Mr Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, was present.

Mapping Maldives

Meanwhile, the National Remote Sensing Agency, the Hyderabad-based autonomous arm of the Department of Space, has been enlisted to help create satellite-based digital mapping of the Maldives.

The national body will provide satellite imaging and aerial services and help set up a remote sensing unit in the Maldives to analyse and update data.

According to an MoU signed in Male, the project, said to meet a crucial need of that Government, will begin by the end of this month, ISRO said.

The project involves creation of medium-scale maps of the Maldives and large-scale maps of selected areas. "Along with ground reference points, these maps will be used for generating a GIS system which can be updated periodically," the release said.

NRSA will also assist in setting up the centre at Male for maintaining GIS and for using satellite remote sensing data for thematic studies of land and oceans. It will train scientists from the Maldives in running the centre and interpreting the remote sensing data.

The Indian High Commissioner, Mr S.M. Gavai, and Mr Hamdun Hameed, Maldives' Minister of Planning and National Development, signed the MoU in Male.