We look forward to working with ISRO: Dr. Nicola Fox
Dr. Nicola “Nicky” Fox, associate administrator, NASA Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, who is in India to review the upcoming NASAISRO SAR (NISAR) project, spoke to The Hindu on topics ranging from the NISAR mission to sending an Indian astronaut to the International Space Station later this year.
What brings you to India and in particular to Bengaluru?
This is my very first trip to India and I am very excited to be here. We are here celebrating the partnership between NASA and ISRO on our big flagship mission the NISAR mission. I am really looking forward tomorrow to meeting with NISAR team when I visit the U.R. Rao Satellite Centre and honestly seeing the spacecraft in the clean room is always a very inspiring thing to do. And then of course talking about the ways the two agencies interact in a whole round of not just science but also in astrophysics, heliophysics and in planetary.
How is the NISAR project progressing?
NISAR is progressing very well. So as I said I will be seeing it in the clean room. We are in the final phase before launch, where you are testing and making sure that everything is perfect because of course if anything has an issue you want to identify that when it is still on the ground and not when it is in space. So, we are progressing hopefully to launch later this year. We don’t have a specific date yet.
Are you meeting ISRO officials and visiting any of the centres?
We are meeting the Secretary of Space and we are looking forward to that.
India signed the Artemis Accords last year and NASA will be training an Indian astronaut for a mission to the International Space Station by the end of 2024. Can you share some light on this?
We are excited to hear ISRO announce the selection of the four astronaut candidates. We are very much looking to work with ISRO to further that and get the astronaut into space. If things go according to the plan, obviously there is training and various things that have to happen, but just looking forward to ISRO moving ahead with that training.
Any other space collaborations with India will be discussed with ISRO?
We will be talking about the ongoing ones. I am a heliophysicist, so I am excited about the AdityaLI missions. We have a total solar eclipse that will be happening in the U.S. in April and we have 18 missions that are focusing and taking data of the Sun during that eclipse. We are excited that AdityaLI will be doing the same and joining in so that we can pool all the data together. Also talking about Chandrayaan3, the fact that we had a Laser Retroreflector Array on there we were able to ping it, so that is another great collaboration.