Chethan Kumar writes in Parallax: Why IISc should be Isro’s JPL

There’s something telling about the relationship between IISc and Isro. The two institutions have worked together on everything from navigation signals and spacecraft thermal systems to Martian construction materials and experiments involving microbes in space. Yet, the question remains: could IISc become to Isro what the California Institute of Technology is to Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)?The comparison is not new. At an IISc alumni meet in Washington in 2017, Murthy Gudipati, a scientist at JPL and an IISc alumnus, drew attention to the role the institute could play in India’s space ambitions. It was a vision, not an announced govt plan. But it’s worth revisiting, particularly as India looks beyond launching satellites towards more demanding planetary missions, human spaceflight and longer stays beyond Earth.JPL offers a useful model because it occupies an unusual space between academia and a national space agency.