THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The 19th National Space Science Symposium (NSSS), a biennial convention of researchers working in the areas of Space, Planetary Sciences and Astronomy began here at Dr Srinivasan Auditorium of Vikram Sarabhai Space centre (VSSC), on Tuesday.

ISRO former chairman Dr U R Rao inaugurated the four-day-long symposium through video conferencing from Bangalore. Though Rao was supposed to come to the venue to inaugurate the conference, he cancelled the travel last minute owing to health issues.

Over 700 researchers and space scientists took part in the convention.

In his presidential address, VSSC director Dr K Sivan mentioned that NSSS is the largest national gathering of space and atmospheric scientists and reiterated the need to focus on atmosphere and space studies, which will enable social development. Union Ministry of Earth Sciences secretary Dr M Rajeevan stressed the need for high resolution satellite observations for improving the accuracy of weather prediction, which is the need of the hour.

VSSC associate director M V Dhekane presented a brief report on NSSS-2016 and expressed the hope that the symposium will be highly fruitful for the scientific community.

VSSC Space Physics Laboratory director Dr Anil Bhardwaj welcomed the gathering. Bengaluru based ISRO Satellite Applications Centre director Dr M Annadurai, Valiamala based Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre director S Somanath and Sriharikota based Satish Dhawan Space Centre director P Kunhikrishnan presented the special plenary lectures on the theme "Future of Space Transportation".



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