Moving to strengthen their partnership, US space agency NASA has invited ISRO to join its Moon Base programme, the recently-launched effort to get humans back to the Moon with the larger objective of setting up a permanent settlement there. The offer, disclosed Tuesday, was made at the ninth meeting of the India-US Civil Space Joint Working Group in Bengaluru on August 5 and 6 which US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor also addressed. In 2023, India had joined the Artemis Accords, a US-led space alliance, whose stated purpose is to evolve and commit to a common set of principles that govern the civil exploration of outer space including the Moon. India was the 27th country to sign on the Artemis Accords. Now, a total of 70 countries are part of the Accords. “NASA invited ISRO to join its Moon Base program, building on the two countries’ partnership under the Artemis Accords,” a read-out from the US Embassy in India stated. “The two sides also agreed to advance discussions for cooperation on open scientific data sharing under the Accords,” it stated. In the last few years, the space agencies of the two countries have come closer to each other than ever before. The same year that India joined the Artemis Accords, the two countries had also agreed to develop a “strategic framework for human spaceflight cooperation”. It was in the same vein that NASA had agreed to provide advanced training to Indian astronauts at its facilities with the objective of sending them to the International Space Station through privately-operated missions. The flight of Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla to the ISS in 2025 was a result of this arrangement. Last year, two space agencies achieved a big milestone when they launched the long-awaited NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) mission, an ambitious and first-of-its-kind joint space mission. The offer to cooperate further on Moon missions is a logical extension of these efforts. “The August 5-6 meeting focused on further expanding commercial and civil space cooperation between the two countries. The two sides also spoke on furthering joint missions to the Moon and beyond, and identified the areas in which the two countries could share their expertise and knowledge,” an ISRO scientist said. “NISAR’s data sharing and operations were discussed in-depth. It is seen as a successful joint venture and could pave the way for more such complex space missions, including the human space flight mission and building the lunar base,” the scientist said. NASA has launched an Artemis programme to take humans back to the Moon. There have been two preliminary flights under this programme – the first one was uncrewed in November 2022, and a crewed one flew around the Moon this April without making a landing. The next flight of the programme, probably by 2028, is scheduled to make the first human landing on the Moon since the Apollo programme. ISRO is also pursuing its own human spaceflight programme Gaganyaan. It has plans to make a human landing on the Moon by 2040. ExplainedDeepening tiesNASA’s invitation to ISRO for the Moon base programme reflects the growing ties between the two space agencies. It comes in the wake of Shubhanshu Shukla’s Axiom flight to the ISS last year and the launch of the dual-frequency radar satellite NISAR. In 2023, India signed the Artemis Accords which provides a framework for civil space exploration. The Bengaluru meeting was co-chaired by M Sankaran, Director, UR Rao Satellite Centre, ISRO; Wesley Brooks, Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs; and Kathleen Karika, NASA Associate Administrator for International and Interagency Relations. “The meeting advanced civil and commercial space cooperation under the US-India Transforming the Relationship Utilizing Strategic Technology (TRUST) Initiative, in line with the February 2025 Joint Leaders’ Statement issued by Prime Minister Modi and President Trump,” the US read-out stated. “Both sides discussed expanding cooperation following the successful launch of the joint NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission last year, as well as pursuing future science and human space flight technology collaborations. They reaffirmed their commitment to advancing the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) guidelines on the long-term sustainability of outer space activities, as well as reviewed ongoing multilateral efforts for ensuring the Committee’s effectiveness,” it stated.
