As Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi goes on his first official visit to the United States, stories surface of increased cooperation between India and the United States in the sphere of space exploration. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), according to White House officials, have supposedly agreed to collaborate on a joint mission to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2024. However, no official confirmation of such agreements has been made thus far.
Joint Mission To International Space Station In 2024
Currently, India and the United States have agreed to launch a NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR), a jointly built advanced earth-imaging satellite. Dr Paul Rosen, NISAR Project Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), said in an interview that the satellite will launch in early 2024. For more than a decade, scientists from both countries have worked together on the NISAR project, and the satellite has already arrived at India’s UR Rao Satellite Centre in preparation for its upcoming launch.
While reports of a NASA-ISRO joint mission to the ISS raise intriguing possibilities, neither the Indian nor American governments have issued official statements regarding this mission or India’s signing of the Artemis Accords—an agreement aimed at promoting safe and sustainable space exploration in the twenty-first century. Neither the ISRO nor NASA have published any statements on the subject. Notably absent from Prime Minister Modi’s entourage are Dr S. Somanath, Chairman of ISRO, and Dr Jitendra Singh, Minister of State in India’s Department of Space. It should be noted, however, that the Prime Minister, as head of the Department of Space, has the highest level of decision-making authority in the space sector.
The ISRO-NASA collaborative mission to the ISS in 2024 could serve as a forerunner to India’s domestic human spaceflight programme, known as Gaganyaan. Indian astronaut candidates, who are Indian Air Force pilots, have finished basic training abroad, simulator training in India, and are currently undertaking theoretical training, according to Dr. S. Somanath. Gaganyaan’s first unmanned flight is anticipated for early 2024, with the crewed mission following in late 2024 or early 2025. Russia, the United States, Japan, France, and the European Union are among the countries assisting India in the Gaganyaan project.
As India’s astronauts train for the indigenous Gaganyaan mission, a joint NASA-India mission to the ISS in 2024 might provide vital practice, giving them a taste of space flight, living in low Earth orbit, and operating in that environment. While the ISS was initially conceived as a collaborative project involving the United States, Russia, Europe, Canada, and Japan, astronauts from Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have travelled to the station as part of private missions. Indian astronauts might potentially join astronauts from other countries on a trip to the International Space Station, which would be housed aboard the Crew Dragon Capsule atop a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket.
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