India and the United States are set to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which will clear the way for the ISRO's ‘NETRA’ in Bengaluru to start collaborating with the American Combined Space Operation Center (CSpOC) to protect satellites of both the nations from natural and man-made threats.
The India-US MoU for cooperation in the field of space situational awareness will be signed early on Tuesday (Indian Standard Time) on the sideline of the India-US 2+2 dialogue in Washington DC.
It will create a framework for India and the US to share data about space debris and other objects and the potential threat they could pose to the safety and security of the new and the existing satellites and the other space assets of the two nations.
The MoU will help the Indian Space Research Organization’s ‘NETRA’ in Bengaluru to receive from the CSpOC located at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in the US data about space debris and other objects in the space and the potential threat they could pose to the safety and security of the new launches as well as the existing satellites and other space assets.
The ISRO opened its NETRA– Network for Space Object Tracking and Analysis – within the ISTRAC campus at Peenya in Bengaluru on December 14 last year.
The US Joint Space Operation Command Center (JspOC) transitioned into the CSpOC – a US-led multinational initiative involving the UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany and New Zealand. It receives inputs from the Space Surveillance Network and shares data with the nations having Space Situational Awareness agreements with the US.
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