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Monday, Sep 03, 2007
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Preparations on for international astronautical congress

T.S. Subramanian

Sunita Williams to participate in the five-day meet in Hyderabad
About 1,300 papers will be presented on a variety of topics

CHENNAI: Preparations are moving into top gear for India to host the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Hyderabad from September 24 to 28. About 2,000 delegates from 45 countries including India will take part in the congress.

A star-participant will be Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams. She will give two lectures at the IAC. While, in one lecture, she will speak on the excitement and challenges of living and working in the International Space Station, her focus in the other will be, “The International Space Station: A historical technological achievement and an international cooperative success.” Space-pioneers, historians, cosmonauts, astronauts, rocket engineers and satellite technologists will also attend.

G. Madhavan Nair, Chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation, which is hosting the IAC, said, “It is going to be a very major event and the registration-level is good.” Referring to the blasts in Hyderabad on August 25, he said, “We have taken stock of the situation” and “we have told the different agencies that everything is safe.”

B.N. Suresh, Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, who is the co-chairman of the committee, said the IAC would provide a panoramic view of “the entire global space activity.” Heads of the seven top space organisations, including the NASA, the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos), the European Space Agency (ESA), the Japanese Space Agency (XACA), the ISRO, the French Space Agency and the Chinese Space Agency, will attend.

“In the plenary sessions, the heads of these topmost space agencies will provide an overview of the current space programme and an insight into the future. You will know the whole global space programme,” said Dr. Suresh, who is also the chairman of the national planning committee for the IAC. About 1,300 papers would be presented on a variety of interesting topics such as earth-threatening asteroids, near-earth objects, interplanetary travel, space transportation system, space law and earth sciences.

“There will be special events and plenary sessions, in which the topmost space experts will give highlight lectures,” he said.

The organisers are the International Astronautical Federation, the ISRO, the Astronautical Society of India, the International Academy of Astronautics and the International Institute of Space Law.

The theme of the congress is “Touching Humanity: Space for Improving Quality of Life.”

Kalam to deliver lecture

The former President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, will give a “highlight lecture.” Mr. Kalam was the project director of ISRO’s first two SLV-3 flights from Sriharikota in 1979 and 1980. Sunita Williams, who was aboard the International Space Station from December 2006 to June 2007, holds the record for the longest stay in space for a woman and the longest extra-vehicular activity (space walks) for a woman.

“This congress being held in September in India has special significance,” said Dr. Suresh, “because 2007 is the 50th anniversary of the launch of the first-ever man-made satellite Sputnik, which was launched by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957.”

He added: “That event opened the space era. So this is the 50th year of the space age. The congress will discuss what space has done for the mankind. There will be specific events that will recall the contributions of those men in the then USSR.”

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