IIT Madras Hosted The First Space Technology Cells Meeting

On September 19, IIT-Madras announced that it became the host for the Space Technology Cells' first meeting. The joint policy committee was founded by the Department of Space and ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization).

IIT-M stated in a related statement that the Space Technolgy Cells' first meeting, ISRO-IIT Madras Space Technology Cell Confluence 2019, was organized on the 16 and 17 of September at IIT-Madras.

The meeting aimed at sharing info about the study underway in many institutions, important findings as well as understanding the output utilization by ISRO.

Both the Space Department of the Central government and ISRO have founded and managed the SPCs for more than 3 decades in Pune-based Savitribai Phule Pun University, and Indian Institute of Science, IIT Roorkee, IIT Guwahati, IIT Kanpur, IIT Bombayind, IIT-M, and IIT Kharagpur, Bengaluru, to research on space-related technologies.

As per the statement, Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director at IIT-M emphasized the collaborative research's importance and simultaneously recommended this institution to spend three to four weeks at ISRO centers in order to communicate with the researchers to reach joint proposals.

During the meeting, various STCs’ conveners made their presentations and various success stories were told. Additionally, the RESPOND coordinators of many centers also shared about the technologies’ relevance & absorption.

Furthermore, a small group of experts talked about the “Role of Academia in Indian Space Programme - A New Approach” and offers some method to go forward. In addition, the confluence’s major take-aways and the proceedings in the two-day event were summarized by the Director of Capacity Building Programme Office at ISRO Dr. PV Venkatakrishnan. Meanwhile, Associate Director at AI, ISRO, and RESPOND, proposed a vote of thanks.