"Keen to be partners with India in its space journey": Australian envoy on space collaboration projects

Australian High Commissioner to India, Philip Green OAM, on Wednesday, expressed Canberra's willingness to collaborate with New Delhi in the space sector and added that both nations are going ahead with the three collaborative space projects and signing the first Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) today.

While speaking to ANI, Philip Green expressed Australia's interest in partnering with India in its space exploration endeavours, adding that the Australian government has pledged a USD 18 million grant for joint India-Australia space projects.

"Here today we are saying that we are keen to be partners for India in its space journey. We're already strategic and quad partners with India and we want to do more with space and my government is backing it," said Philip Green.

Today we're signing the first MOU of three that has been settled as a result of an USD 18 million dollar grant for my government specifically, for India-Australia space collaborations," he added.

Further, the Australian envoy said they are excited about the Indian space sector and believe its different and complementary skills can benefit each other.

"We're very excited about the Indian space sector and we're particularly excited about the fact that Australia has different and complementary skills," the Australian envoy said to ANI.

"We're a very big continent with very few numbers of people, which means we have very dark skies. We have great abilities in terms of space tracking," he added.

Congratulating PM Modi for his victory in the 2024 general elections, Philip Green said that Australia is looking to work even more closely in the future.

He also disclosed during the interview that there could be high-level visits by Australia and India to galvanise the already strong partnership.

"We congratulate Modi and his government on re-election. We look forward to working even more closely as we go forward. There are three powerful drivers in our bilateral relationship, our new strategic alignment, the very strong complementarity between our economies and what we call the human bridge, the more than a million people of Indian origin who now make Australia their home," said Philip Green.

"We're planning visits I'm not going to announce them to you today, but I can assure you there will be high-level visits by Australia and India to galvanise what is already a strong partnership," he added

On April 30, "the Australian Government announced funding for three collaborative space projects that will strengthen the space economy for the two partner nations," said the Australian Space Agency in an official statement.

"The projects will receive a total of A$18 million (Rs 98 crore) as part of the International Space Investment India (ISI) Projects program," the statement added.

Each project will include a number of Australian and Indian partners, who will help address climate change, boost manufacturing, and advance artificial intelligence, among other objectives.