ISRO & Kazakhstan — Buddy Builders

Five members of the National Cosmic Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan (NCARK), led by their Chairman of the space agency Talghat Mussabayev, traveled to India to chat with the folk at the Indian Space Research Organization and their chairman, G. Madhavan Nair and other execs. Kazakhstan is the home of the Baikonur satellite launch facility. The conversations are to determine what may be forged as a partnership between these two agencies in regards to the training of engineers and specialists as well as satellite construction.


Baikonur, Kazakhstan, map
This week long tour to Bangalore, India, will find visits to ISRO HQ, their Satellite Center, the Telemetry, Tracking and Commanding Networks HQ and the Regional Remote Sensing service Center. Long term cooperation is the goal, and the NCARK already has two additional satellites in their pipeline and have plans for a nextgen launch vehicle named Baiterek. Preliminary trials for this vehicle are scheduled for 2010, with more than a dozen comsats planned plus a navigation system on the drawing board.