India-France space co-operation turns 50

Department of Posts released stamps to mark the occasion

To mark 50-years of India-France space cooperation, Department of Posts has released two stamps and miniature sheet on theme of 'India-France: 50 Years of Space Cooperation'.

Space co-operation between India and France is India's oldest and most important collaboration with an European nation.

Exchanges at the start of the 1960s between what would later become the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) and the fledgling French National Space Agency (CNES) laid the foundations of a low-key but sustained relation between the two space agencies.

The first French-Indian space cooperation agreement was signed in May 1964 covered licenses to build Belier and Centaure sounding rockets in India, with the accompanying transfer of solid-propulsion technologies. Under the patronage of the United Nations and overseen by a CNES team, 50 French rockets were built locally and launched from 1965 onwards at the Thumba equatorial launch site in Kerala.

Isro is CNES's number two partner after NASA in terms of volume of activity.

Since the 1990s, CNES and Isro have been collaborating and effort have resulted in the launch of space missions including Megha-Tropiques in 2011, the Indo-French joint satellite mission launched for studying the water cycle and energy exchanges in the tropics.

The satellite with ARGOS and ALTIKA (SARAL) is another joint Indo-French satellite mission launched in 2013 for oceanographic studies.

Department of Posts launched one stamp each on the two statellites Megha-Tropiques and SARAL.

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