Article Posted on : - Sep 06, 2022

BENGALURU (PTI): India and Australia elevated their space relationship as six new industry-to-industry memorandums for collaboration between the two countries were signed at the seventh ‘Bengaluru Space Expo 2022’ on Monday.

Australia continues to look at new ways to enhance its space collaboration with India, said the Head of the Australian Space Agency (ASA), Enrico Palermo, in his address to the international conference and exhibition.

The establishment of a Consulate-General in Bengaluru from 2023 will allow us to further develop the space relationship, he said.

We also recognise the significance of India's national space programme and are glad to be supporting the inspirational 'Gaganyaan' human space flight mission, Palermo added.

Highlighting the strong commercial links in space between Australia and India, six separate Australia-India space industry memorandums were exchanged at the inauguration of the space summit.

Australia's Space Machines Company will collaborate with Bengaluru-based aerospace and defence manufacturer Ananth Technologies on product integration, testing, technology development and joint-space missions.

Australian startup HEX20 will work with Hyderabad-based Skyroot Aerospace to provide launch services, spacecraft avionics and components to Australian Space Initiatives.

Perth-headquartered QL Space will also partner with Skyroot Aerospace to further develop launch facilities in Australia and support joint mineral exploration missions in space. Perth is known as Australia's resources, mining and mining technology capital.

QL Space will partner with Chennai-based GalaxEye to develop a hybrid optic and Radar payload to reduce the adverse environmental impact of critical mineral exploration in Australia and beyond.

QL Space and Bengaluru-based SatSure will work together to build satellite and AI-based solutions to support the agriculture, mining and defence industries, and apply this technology to the outer space environment.

Australia's SABRN Health, Altdata and India's DCube will work together on the development and integration of hardware, sensor technology and software to provide health support to astronauts, it was stated.

"They (Australia) were able to attract (Indian) startups to work together. This shows that Australia is also open to launching our satellites from their land sometime, and vice versa", Secretary in the Department of Space and Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation, S Somanath said.