Prof Dipankar Banerjee, Vice-Chancellor, IIST visited the Space Applications Centre (SAC - ISRO), Ahmedabad, during two days – 26 and 27 Nov 2025 and carried out extensive discussions. Prof Banerjee met Dr. Nilesh Desai, Director, SAC and discussed regarding areas of mutual interest to foster further collaboration through projects between IIST and SAC. The areas of overlapping interest in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Earth and Environmental sciences were discussed in detail with group members of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Applications Area (EPSA) led by Dr. Mehul Pandya.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has approved the name of M. S. Krishnan, a pioneering Indian geologist, for a 3.5-billion-year-old crater on Mars. The crater lies in a region where evidence of ancient glaciation has been scientifically established. The naming proposal was jointly submitted by Prof. Rajesh V. J. (Department of Earth and Space Sciences, Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, IIST) and Dr. Asif Iqbal Kakkassery (who was a research scholar under the guidance of Dr. Rajesh V.J.