"India has a burgeoning space industry": Former Australian PM Scott Morrison on India-Australia technology cooperation

"India has a burgeoning space industry": Former Australian PM Scott Morrison on India-Australia technology cooperation

Former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Thursday said the latest announcements on cooperation in cybersecurity, critical technologies, resilient supply chains and support for India's Gaganyaan mission reflected the natural evolution of the India-Australia Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, while praising India's rapidly growing space sector. Speaking to ANI, Morrison said the agreements marked the implementation phase of the broader strategic partnership between the two countries. "Highlighting all of these areas of cooperation is exactly what the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership was designed to deliver. I'd call all of this implementation phase agreements, the natural outworking of being able to get the relationship to the level we were able to achieve," he said. Highlighting the importance of space cooperation, Morrison said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had placed significant emphasis on developing India's space sector. "Another area of great interest to Prime Minister Modi is the space industry and the potential for development there, and its cooperation with Australia and others as well. India has a burgeoning space industry," he said. Recalling his visit to India, Morrison praised the country's astronauts and its achievements in space exploration, including the country's successful lunar landing mission Chandrayaan-3. "When I was last in India, I met the equivalent of your astronauts, and they were very impressive young men who are involved in upcoming missions. I'll never forget when India was able to touch down on the Moon, and I'll never forget the look on Prime Minister Modi's face. He was pretty thrilled with what his nation was able to achieve, and it said a lot about the advanced space capabilities of India," he said. In a major boost to New Delhi's extraterrestrial ambitions, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Thursday announced the establishment of a temporary space tracking infrastructure on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands to actively support India's maiden human spaceflight endeavour, the Gaganyaan mission. The announcement came during a joint press interaction alongside Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who met his Australian counterpart during the second leg of his three-nation visit. The two leaders shared a warm handshake as they posed for the media in Melbourne, underscoring the deepening strategic convergence between the two democracies. Addressing the media, PM Albanese highlighted the expanding technological alignment between Canberra and New Delhi. "As we expand our cooperation in space and technology, we have agreed to commission a temporary space tracking terminal on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, which will support India's landmark Gaganyaan Human Space Flight Programme," PM Albanese said. The strategic announcement coincides with significant technical breakthroughs back in India, where the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully executed a pivotal validation trial of the main parachute systems designed for the Gaganyaan crew module. (ANI)