The Chief of the Space Weather Laboratory at the Goddard Space Flight Center at National Aeronautics and Space Administration(NASA), Judith T. Karpen, has stressed international co-operation in space research, during a visit to the Radio Astronomy Center (RAC) in Udhagamandalam.
Research and observation of space weather, especially coronal mass explosions and solar flares, was impossible for a single country to perform alone, she said. The co-operation of various space agencies and scientists from across the world was required to study and analyse space weather. NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) are to work closely in the coming years after the inking of a memorandum of understanding recently, Ms. Karpen said.
With the help of Indian scientists, the Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC) model, a multi-agency partnership to support and perform research for next-generation space science and space weather models, was already being implemented, she said.
Ms. Karpen was on a visit to RAC for the fifth annual science day programme held at the facility on Tuesday. Addressing young children who were at the programme, she praised the “critical role” India was playing in space research programmes. “India of course has a very long history in producing scientists and mathematicians,” she said, before adding that the Indian government was also greatly supporting research programmes.
The American space agency was involved in understanding the levels of instrumentation that exist in India to monitor space weather, she added. Ms. Karpen also spoke of the increasing role private space agencies could one day play in launching instruments into low-altitude orbits, but said that such endeavours were still in their infancy. “We in the USA are still trying to figure out the public-private partnership model that would be the best fit,” she said.
P.K. Manoharan, head of the Radio Astronomy Center, said that the theme for this year’s science programme was ‘Science and Technology with specially-abled persons’.
