France ready to share expertise for Gaganyaan: French space agency

BENGALURU: As part of the existing umbrella co-operation agreement between the two nations—the joint vision for space co-operation signed earlier this year and the one signed in 2015—India and France will co-operate on the proposed human spaceflight programme (HSP) or Gaganyaan, chiefs of both the space agencies said on Thursday.Jean-Yves Le Gall, president, French space agency—Centro Nacional de Estudios Espaciales (CNES)— even announced a working group for the same here and said that there are a lot of areas of human spaceflight that France has expertise in which it would like to offer.Among things that the two agencies will work on, are space medicine, astronaut health monitoring, life support, radiation protection, space debris protection and personal hygiene systems.“We even has expertise in astronauts’ training,” Gall told TOI. However, Sivan said that the partnership was part of existing space agreements between the countries.In August, Sivan had said that Isro will be willing to learn from as many foreign agencies as possible as it allows them to become more efficient given the tight schedule set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the mission. India hopes to launch humans into space by 2022.Gall pointed out that some teams have already begun discussions on infrastructure building, including in the areas of microgravity applications.India and France already have space cooperation in areas of climate monitoring among other things. They even have a fleet of joint satellites devoted to research and operational applications.