The status of Megha Tropiques, an Indo-French collaborative satellite project scheduled for launch in 2009 for tropical weather monitoring, was presented during the meeting, which was chaired by ISRO Chairman Dr G Madhavan Nair and President of CNES Dr Yannick d'Escatha.

Megha Tropiques carries four payloads-- a microwave radiometer, a humidity sounder, a radiation measuring instrument and a radio occulation sounder for atmospheric studies, an ISRO presss release said.

During the meeting, an agreement between ISRO and CNES on the data policy for distribution of data received from Megha Tropiques was also signed.

The data policy enables the global scientific community to have free access to Megha Tropiques data after calibration and evaluation of the payloads by scientists from both agencies for weather and climate change studies and expected to enhance a better understanding of the tropical weather phenomena including the monsoons, it said.

The meeting also reviewed the status of SARAL, a small satellite mission with payloads from CNES for study of ocean parameters towards enhancing the understanding of the ocean state conditions which are otherwise not covered by the in-situ measurements, the release said.

Press Trust of India

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