ISRO Has Great Job Opportunities For Young Indians: NASA

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has great jobs to offer young Indians who want to work in the space domain, said a prominent NASA project head at an event in Bengaluru on Friday.

“Indian students can make a career in space and astronomy by getting into their space agency ISRO rather than looking elsewhere outside India, as it is doing exciting things in space,” said Ann Devereaux, Spacecraft system engineering manager of Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), at an event to mark the World Space Week” of the UN General Assembly.

JPL is a research facility which is a part of the US space agency National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA), housed in California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and carries out robotic space and earth science missions.

As NASA and ISRO are working together on a number of space projects, Ann said global space organisations like ISRO require smart people to collaborate in inter-planetary exploration and space programmes with other space agencies for the benefit of the people at large.

Speaking about talents in India, she said, “There is no dearth of talent in India, as is evident in Team Indus, a home-grown space firm in Bengaluru, which worked hard to launch the country’s maiden private satellite to moon onboard ISRO’s rocket through sponsorship and crowd funding.”

“Team Indus is competing for the Google Lunar X prize… The members are smart and went to Indian universities and want to put a commercial rover on the lunar surface,” Ann pointed out. Ann is also the principal engineer for the Mars 2020 lead flight segment.

In India as part of the US state department’s speakers’ programme, Ann has already visited Kolkata, Ahmedabad and New Delhi before visiting Bengaluru to talk about space exploration and other opportunities with teachers, students and start-ups.

The UN observes the “World Space Week” every year since 1999, from October 04 -10, coinciding with the launch of the first man-made earth satellite – Sputnik 1 on October 04, 1957, and signing of the Outer Space Treaty on October 10, 1967.