Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu today suggested to ISRO to give a thrust to the indigenously-developed regional navigation satellite system, NaVIC for global use.
Addressing scientists and staff of the U R Rao Satellite Centre, he complimented ISRO for establishing and putting in operation NaVIC and termed it as a significant achievement.
Naidu wanted ISRO to actively pursue the expansion of the NaVIC system in terms of areas covered, services offered and its effective utilization to meet the national requirements.
Observing that India has huge potential to expand its footprint globally in the space sector, he urged the recently-launched Indian Space Association to contribute in a big way to make India totally self-reliant and a global leader in the space arena.
He appreciated ISRO for its leadership role in incubating Indian private entities by enabling them to participate in space-related activities.
“I am sure the impressive track record of ISRO in building the knowledge base and space assets over the years will be leveraged to multiply the benefits to the nation with the participation of private players”, he added.
Describing ISRO as the pride of the nation, the Vice President said the organization is respected globally for its outstanding achievements in the field of space research.
“Over the years, ISRO has made invaluable contribution to the nation’s progress by building more than 100 state-of-the-art satellites for various applications and also establishing operational launch vehicle systems like PSLV and GSLV”, he noted.
Lauding U R Rao Satellite Centre for relentlessly pursuing its mission of providing operational satellites, scientific missions, exploratory missions and Deep Space Missions, he noted that 53 operational satellites of ISRO were providing valuable services in telecommunication, broadcasting, meteorology, remote sensing, navigation and space science.
He also expressed his appreciation that the U R Rao Satellite Centre was working on the next generation of IRNSS satellites, Chandrayaan-3 for a soft landing on Moon and Aditya-L1 mission to study the Sun by next year.
Karnataka Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot; ISRO Chairman Dr K Sivan; Director, U R Rao Satellite Centre (USRC) Sankaran; Scientific Secretary, ISRO, Umamaheswaran were present on the occasion.