and motivating principles, the Department has always emphasised on the capacity building
related aspects. Capacity building encompasses multiples areas of development to ensure that the
department achieves its goals, as envisioned. Following are some of the key areas of capacity
building.
International Cooperation
International cooperation is an integral part of Indian space activities and ISRO continues to
lay importance on bilateral and multilateral relations with space agencies and space related
bodies with the aim of taking up new scientific and technological challenges, defining
international frameworks for exploitation and utilisation of outer space for peaceful purposes,
refining space policies and building and strengthening existing ties between the countries. ISRO
signed cooperative agreements with the French, UAE, Japanese, US, Vietnamese, Afghanistan
and Russian agencies as well the US Geological Survey.
Space Commerce
Antrix Corporation Limited, the commercial arm of the Department of Space, is marketing
the Indian space products and services in the global market. Antrix offers a wide range of
services from the space based systems through specific commercial contracts with other
agencies, including foreign customers. Under commercial contracts with Antrix, 237
international customer satellites have already been successfully launched by PSLV during the
period 1999-2018. In 2017 alone, PSLV launched 130 foreign satellites.
Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology
Towards capacity building in human resources and to meet the growing demands of the
Indian Space Programme, the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST), a deemed
university, was established at Thiruvananthapuram in 2007.
Earth Sciences
Earth system sciences deals with all the five components of the earth system, viz.,
atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, lithosphere and biosphere and their complex interaction.
The Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) holistically addresses all the aspects relating the earth
system science for providing weather, climate, ocean, coastal state, hydrological and
seismological services. The services include forecasts and warnings for various natural disasters.
The services provided are being effectively used by different agencies and state governments for
saving human lives and minimizing damages due to natural disasters.
Relevant Website: www.moes.gov.in
Atmospheric and Climate Research
A high resolution global deterministic weather prediction model was commissioned for
generating operational weather forecasts at a horizontal resolution of 12 km. With this, MoES
has attained the same capability as in USA in using high resolution weather prediction models.
Many major improvements have been made in data assimilation for the ingestion of data from
the Indian and International satellites in numerical models. Under the Monsoon Mission,
operational dynamical model systems have been implemented for extended range and seasonal
forecasts. For the first time, forecasts on different time scales during the hot weather season