‘We look forward to work with ISRO and get the Indian astronaut into space’
The Hindu
Dr. Nicola "Nicky" Fox of NASA discusses NISAR project, Indian astronaut training, and future collaborations with ISRO in Bengaluru.
Dr. Nicola “Nicky” Fox, associate administrator, NASA Science Mission Directorate
Dr. Nicola “Nicky” Fox, associate administrator, NASA Science Mission Directorate-NASA Headquarters, who is on a visit to India to review the upcoming NASA-ISRO SAR (NISAR) project spoke to The Hindu on the sidelines of a student outreach event in Bengaluru on whole range of topics ranging from the NISAR mission to sending an Indian astronaut to the International Space Station later this year.
Q. Dr. Fox, what brings you to India and in particular to Bengaluru?
A. 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 and 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, to see a piece of technology which is about to go to space so I am excited about that. 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 so kind of getting to talk about the ways the agencies are collaborating together.
Q. How is the NISAR project progressing? When is the launch scheduled to take place?
A. 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 because it is easy fix on the ground it is hard to fix in space so we are doing all of those final checks and progressing hopefully to launch later this year. We don’t have a specific date (for the launch) yet. We are still in the final testing and verifying everything is perfect but as soon as that spacecraft is ready then we will have a launch date.
Q. Are you meeting ISRO Officials, visiting any of the centres?
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