India is building a Mega ISRO Ground Station in Vietnam for ASEAN countries. Take a look at the details of the project in the article below.

India is building space cooperation among the ASEAN countries. It has started work on a ground station to be established in Vietnam's payload data reception, processing and dissemination facility.

ISRO Ground Station: Aim

It aims to provide a reliable operational space-based system for remote sensing over the ASEAN countries like Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam.

Mega ISRO Ground Station: History

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi had pushed the idea of a ground station in Vietnam in the year 2015 at India ASEAN meeting at Nay Pyi Taw in Myanmar. Following that, this year India told the UN Security Council its vision of the free and open Indo Pacific region.

About The Ground Station

The proposed facility of the ground station would be built on four hectare of land at My Phuoc 3 industrial park, in Binh Doung province of Vietnam.

It would have a 11m antenna which will be installed by ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network, also called ISTRAC.

The project's land has been acquired by the Vietnamese Government ahead of ISTRAC floating an expression of interest (EOI) from bidders for construction of the facility last week.

The cost estimated for the project is 86 billion Vietnamese dollars and it would take 18 months to complete the work.

Antenna support structure is spread across 75 sq metres

The facility would be spread across 1235 sqm.

This facility would be helpful for India and ISRO already has ground stations in various places like Bengaluru, Lucknow, Mauritius, Sriharikota, Port Blair, Thiruvananthapuram, Brunei, Biak.

ISRO Telemetry Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) provides support of the TTC ground stations, communications network between ground stations and control centre, control centre including computers, storage, data network and control room facilities, and the support of Indian Space Science Data Centre (ISSDC) for the mission.

The ground segment systems form an integrated system supporting both launch phase, and orbital phase of the mission.

What Is Space Diplomacy:

The art of using space to conduct foreign affairs and advance national interests is called Space Diplomacy. Space is the new place where global powers are exercising their hegemony. The nation's project their soft power through space diplomacy.

For example: ISRO is also pursuing a proposal to support ASEAN countries to receive the data from RESOURCESAT 2and OCEANSAT 2 and process it.