Starting Monday more than 500 Indian and US space policymakers and industry representatives will meet in the southern Indian city of Bangalore to discuss joint exploration projects.

U.R. Rao, former chief of UN Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, said the Indian space program was mature and could cooperate with the United States on satellite projects of interest to the world.

"Both the nations can collaborate in establishing a global disaster management system, joint environmental monitoring and weather forecasting," Rao told AFP.

He said the countries could also use space to widen access to medical know-how and education, adding: "The ideas emanating from this venture can be applied elsewhere in the world."

The five-day Bangalore conference follows a landmark agreement in January to expand cooperation in space and the peaceful use of nuclear technology.

The deal marked a turnaround from the sanctions on advanced technology transfers the United States imposed on India and its rival Pakistan in 1998 after they conducted nuclear tests.

Analyst Uday Bhaskar at the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses in New Delhi said the space talks were an "important engagement between the two nations."

"This is a do-able area after a lot of rhetoric on nuclear issues. It will help to embed the relationship and give it substance," Bhaskar said.

Marco Di Capua, counselor for science and technology at the US embassy in New Delhi, said India was an important market for the United States.

"The change of attitude is part of the transformation of the India-US relationship. We feel that India is important in Asia. India is having a larger and larger presence in the United States both technologically and people-wise," Capua said, noting that two million Indians lived in the United States.

He said the Indian space programme had matured over the last 10 years and the aim of the conference was to understand each other's abilities.

The Banaglore talks will cover, amongst other topics, earth observation science, satellite communications, satellite navigation and applications, space science, natural hazards research and disaster and space commerce.

But P.S. Goel, director of the Indian Space Research Organisation's Satellite Center, said there was still a lack of understanding by the United States of what India could offer.

"They need to know what our strengths are. In the US the (space) industry has a lot of say in policy matters," he said.

He said there were more possibilities for the future "once they come and know what we can do for them."

Space cooperation between India and the US dates back to 1963 with an atmospheric experiment on a US-made rocket.

SPACE.WIRE