As India prepares to send three humans into space for seven days before 2020, support from France has poured in for the ambitious mission. The spacecraft will be placed in a low Earth orbit of 300-400 kilometres.
ISRO and CNES, the French space agency, will be combining their expertise in fields of space medicine, astronaut health monitoring, life support, radiation protection, space debris protection and personal hygiene systems, said French space agency president Jean-Yves Le Gall.
Engineering teams have already begun discussions and it is envisioned that infrastructure such as CADMOS centre for development of microgravity applications and space operations or the MEDES space clinic will be used for training of future Indian astronauts, as well as exchange of specialist personnel, Gall said.
ISRO plans to conduct experiments on microgravity through its astronauts.
Representational Image
French-Indian space cooperation spans in areas of climate monitoring, with a fleet of joint satellites devoted to research and operational applications, innovation, through a joint technical group tasked with inventing the launch vehicles of the future.
The two also have plans to work on Mars, Venus and asteroids.