The European Space Agency (ESA) has invited ISRO to be a member of the International Education Space Board, agency chief Jean Jacques Dordain said, while addressing presspersons here on Wednesday at the 58th International Astronautical Congress.

“The Board was created two years ago and aims to put up attractive projects for networking students from all over the world. In fact, it is expected to help build the culture of international cooperation,” he said, adding that ISRO chief Madhavan Nair had shown interest. Dordain said  international cooperation has many recipes for success but “above all, it is a culture that needs to be encouraged”. Students, he felt, were the best way to take this forward.

He noted that there were some proposals from India to take part in ESA’s ‘Cosmic Vision’ which studies the science of solar system and space environment. These were being studied, he said, while pointing out that collaboration with India has been an ongoing process, with both partners sharing vital information. Regarding the cooperation with China on its moon mission, he was quick to point out that ESA has such tie-ups with many nations. “In fact there are more proposals from China than from India for our Cosmic Vision.” Dordain said that rather than concentrating on bringing down the cost of the launches, it was important to study the range of launches as also reliability.

“We are not a mass market entity and so the costs are not the main factor.  What we need to do is to make use of the available data that has been delivered using the space tools. Investments have to be in accessing data that is available and making use of it,” he added.