Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), the French space agency, signed a letter of intent with the Indian Space Research Organization for French participation in the next Mars mission, with plans for launch in 2018.
Jean-Yves Le Gall, president of CNES, said in an interview with Business Insider, “We know the ambitions of India to explore the Red Planet. We are very very impressed with what India is doing with Mangalyaan, which is currently orbiting Mars. In France, we have very skilled scientists for both Mars and Venus. Since there is already a project to explore Mars in India, we implemented an agreement to co-operate in the future on this project.”
In addition to the Mars program, India and France signed agreements for a future earth observation satellite and putting French Argos-4 data collection payload in the Oceansat-3, which may be launched in 2018 to provide continuity of data for already established services in the area of oceanographic applications. The earth observation project is to have a joint thermal infrared mission, reports Deccan Herald.
