NASA To Prepare Indian Astronaut For ISS Mission

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced on Wednesday that NASA will train an Indian astronaut for a voyage to the International Space Station (ISS) as early as next year. This development reflects the deepening space collaboration between India and the United States.

Nelson highlighted the opportunity for scientific collaboration, speaking at an event in Bengaluru, where he is set to inspect the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite on Thursday. NISAR is a low-Earth orbit observatory jointly developed by NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The satellite, roughly the size of an SUV, is scheduled to be launched from India in the first quarter of the upcoming year, with a target launch in January.

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NISAR’s mission involves mapping the entire planet every 12 days, providing valuable data for understanding changes in ecosystems, ice mass, vegetation biomass, sea level rise, groundwater, and natural hazards such as earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, and landslides.

India aims to quintuple its share of the global satellite launch market within the next decade and joined NASA’s Artemis Accords in June, emphasizing scientific transparency and establishing rules of coordination to prevent harmful interference in space and on the moon.

In August, India won a race to reach the south pole of the moon, surpassing Russia after the Luna-25 lander crashed from orbit. Russia, facing western sanctions over its war in Ukraine, may encounter challenges in funding a successor. China, with significant investments in its space program, plans more missions after making the first-ever soft landing on the far side of the moon in 2019. The US is expected to spend approximately $93 billion on its Artemis moon program through 2025.