India and Russia signed a protocol on the 19th of July to boost co-operation in space including joint development of global navigation system and launching Russian spacecraft by Indian rockets. The protocol signed by Gen. Anatoly Perminov of Russian Federal Space Agency -“Roskosmos”- and ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair also provides for the joint projects in space exploration.
Nair and Perminov discussed the prospects for the restoration and joint use of GPS and the possibility of launching Russian spacecraft on Indian-made space launch vehicles.India and Russia are exploring the possibility of developing equipment for Earth probes, joint research in the area of electric engines for spacecraft, and joint projects for probing lunar surface and building a space-based solar observatory to study X-ray radiation.
Russia has also indicated its desire to join India’s ‘Chandrayan’ Lunar project. Peaceful cooperation in the sphere of space has been an important part of Indo-Russian relations. In the 1970s-80s, the Soviet Union had launched first Indian satellites-Aryabhatta and Bhaskara from its Baikonur cosmodrome. The first Indian astronaut Rakesh Sharma had traveled to the Soviet Salyut-7 space station in 1984.
