Author Profile: Syed Aseem Ul Islam is a Research Scholar at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA, specializing in adaptive and model-predictive flight control systems. He received his bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the Institute of Space Technology, Islamabad, and his master’s and Ph.D. degrees in flight dynamics and control from the University of Michigan.
The National Aerospace Science and Technology Park (NASTP) is a project under the Aviation City Initiative. The goal is the establishment of an aerospace technology cluster that is physically collocated in order to accrue the many benefits of having related industrial and research centers in close proximity.
History
Starting in 2017, coming off the successful manufacture of a fourth-generation JF-17 in Pakistan, PAF planners felt the need to take the next logical step and indigenize aerospace R&D.
One may hypothesize that the benefits of such an endeavor may have been considered – like any industry, an aerospace industry would create jobs, new avenues of export, and lead to import substitution. There is also a certain prestige associated with having a vibrant aerospace industry. Most importantly, the evolving and uncertain nature of geopolitics may have pushed planners to reduce reliance on foreign sources for military defense of the country.
Even though NASTP was officially launched in 2017, it was unclear what this really was as there was no physical location and no documentation on what this was supposed to be. All we knew was that this was a technology park – one of many being set up under CPEC.
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