- Isro is scheduled to launch its Venus mission in 2025 and France will participate in it, French space agency CNES said.
- The VIRAL (Venus Infrared Atmospheric Gases Linker) instrument co-developed with
○the Russian federal space agency Roscosmos and the LATMOS atmospheres, environments and space observations laboratory
○attached to the French national scientific research centre CNRS has been selected by the Isro after a request for proposals.
- France will be taking part in Isro’s mission to Venus, scheduled to launch in 2025.
- CNES will coordinate and prepare the French contribution, the first time a French payload will be flown on an Indian exploration mission.
- After the Mars Orbiter Mission (Mangalyaan) and Moon missions Chandrayaan-1 and 2, Isro has set its eyes on Venus for carrying out its inter-planetary mission.
- France and India share a robust collaboration in arena of the space. It is one of the three nations with whom India collaborates in the strategic sectors of nuclear, space and defence — the other two being the US and Russia.
- In March 2018, the two countries also issued a ‘Joint Vision for Space Cooperation’.
- India and France are also working on Isro’s human space mission Gaganyaan project, which aims to send three Indians to space by 2022.
SRC : TOI