Chennai: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Department of Space and Central University of Jammu (CUJ) has jointly established a space science centre for carrying out research in space science and technology in the CUJ campus.
The Centre is named after renowned Space Scientist, teacher and former ISRO Chairman Prof. Satish Dhawan, who hailed from Jammu and Kashmir.
The Satish Dhawan Space Science Centre was inaugurated by Dr Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State (MoS) for Space, in the presence of ISRO Chairman ande Secretary, Department of Space Somanath.S, Chairman Dr.K.Radhakrishnan Former ISRO Chairman and Member, Space Commission and Prof. Sanjeev Jain, VC-CUJ.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr Jitendra Singh said the institute will open up new vistas in the region for academicians, industrialists and start-ups in the space domain.
He also opined that the space applications cut across all the technology domains, and space will become an unavoidable technology in the years to come in all walks of life.
The Centre houses different labs/facilities related to geospatial data analysis, materials, astrophysics, natural disasters and avionics.
The inauguration was followed by a two-day conference on ‘Frontiers of Space Technology and Applications for Humanity’ with technical sessions where Directors of IIRS, PRL, NARL, SPL and Senior ISRO scientists and senior faculty from Central University of Jammu delivered talks related to the above areas of research, ISRO said in a release.
Speaking at the inaugural event, Jitendra Singh said space technology will open new vistas for start-ups and innovation in Jammu region.
‘With unlocking of space technology, times to come would have space economy, space collaboration, space diplomacy and space conquest,’ he said.
Singh described this as a historic decision and said that most of space technology institutes were in the past confined to Southern States and the only-of-its-kind Indian Institute of Space and Technology imparting Engineering, Aeronautics and other streams was located in Thiruvananthapuram.
The opening of the Space Centre and the India’s second-of-its-kind Space Training Institutes in Jammu & Kashmir in 75th years of independence simultaneously marks the march of space journey from Kerala to Kashmir under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and at the same time naming it as Satish Dhawan Centre is befitting tribute to one of the founding-fathers of Indiasā Space programme who hails from Jammu & Kashmir but ironically not a single institute in J&K was named after it, he added.