COVER N. 252 - FRANCE  

Postmark: Service des Oblitérations Philatéliques 24-Boulazac 27.04.2023

Posted on the 27h April; Received on the 11th May 2023
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France and India united by the will to explore the earth from above, gathering information for the advancement of science and bettering the living conditions of us all.... That's what satellites should be sent to space for... even if this legitimate and proficuous purpose cannot even compare to that of a Satellite ... of love, such as the one Lou Reed used to sing about....

Thank you Roland for this very interesting cover with a joint France-India issue.

50 Years of India-France Space Co-Operation was the motto for this joint issue, which, on the French side, comprised the two stamps on the cover with 0,76 and 1,20 € denominations, which began to circulate on 13APR2015.

The 0,76 € stamp is dedicated to the Saral (Satellite with ARgos and ALtiKa) Satellite, which was launched on the 25th February 2013, from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, in Sriharikota, in the State of Andhra Pradesh, India. 

According to the potted notes in Wikipedia,  the aim of the SARAL mission is to "perform altimetric measurements designed to study ocean circulation and sea surface elevation" with a view to  the mapping of sea surface height (SSH).

To accomplish its task, the satellite relies on two main pieces of French developed equipment: the ARGOS Advanced-Data Collection System (A-DCS) for collecting the information obtained from ocean buoys and  the Ka-band altimeter (ALtiKa), which, as the name implies, is the first altimeter operating in the Ka-band, a "portion of the microwave part of the electromagnetic spectrum defined as frequencies in the range 26.5–40 gigahertz (GHz)" also according to Wikipedia.

The 1,20 stamp features the Megha-Tropiques satellite, launched on the 12 October 2011, from the same launching site as the Saral.

The aim of its mission, which was completed in April 2022,  was to "study the water cycle in the tropical atmosphere in the context of climate change".

Out of curiosity, I went and checked the Indian counterpart of the joint emission and yes it mirrors the composition and layout of the French Stamps, having been issued on the 10APR2015