Enhancing ‘space ties’ as India, EU shake hands to share Earth observation data from mutual satellites

New Delhi, March 20: Taking ‘space ties’ a step ahead, India EU shake hands to share satellite data mutually. India and the European Union (EU) have signed an agreement that will enable them to share Earth observation data from each other's satellites.

The pact was inked in Bengaluru on Monday by Philippe Brunet, Director for Space Policy, Copernicus and Defence, on behalf of the European Commission, and by PG Diwakar, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Scientific Secretary.

Europe's Copernicus programme, which has a full, free and open data policy, claims to have a thriving user base in Europe, and beyond. It provides a wide range of applications such as climate change, land, ocean, and atmosphere monitoring as well as support in forecasting, management, and mitigation of natural disasters.

 

Under this arrangement, ISRO will share data from its earth observation satellites. The European Commission will provide India with free, full and open access to the data from the Copernicus Sentinel family of satellites using high bandwidth connections from data hub to data hub. This will provide both the sides, the data on climate change, weather forecasting and natural disasters.