India’s envoy, US officials discuss advancing space partnership
India’s Ambassador Vinay Mohan Kwatra and US officials met at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston to review space cooperation between the two countries and discuss ways to advance their partnership.
During the visit on Wednesday, teams from both nations also met with Indian astronauts Shubhanshu Shukla and Prashanth Nair, who are scheduled to fly on the Axios-4 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) next year.
Ambassador Kwatra, accompanied by US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer, met with representatives from NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), according to the State Department.
They discussed plans to launch the jointly developed NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar Earth Science (NISAR) satellite in 2024, the Department added.
Representatives from the private sector space industry also participated in the discussions, exploring ways to strengthen cooperation in the commercial space sector.
On X, Kwatra stated, “Had the opportunity to discuss India and US space cooperation, including the human space flight program and enhancing partnerships between the two private sectors in the fields of innovation and technology.”
Indian Air Force Wing Commander Shukla will serve as the pilot for the mission, which will be operated by Axiom, a private company, in cooperation with NASA. The mission will use rockets and spacecraft from Elon Musk’s SpaceX to fly to the ISS. Nair, who is also undergoing astronaut training, is on standby for the mission.
NISAR, which is set for a March 2024 launch from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, is jointly built by ISRO and NASA. It aims to improve understanding and potentially help with the preparation for and recovery from natural and human-caused disasters. According to NASA, it will be a powerful tool to study earthquakes, volcanoes, and landslides, as well as damage to infrastructure, by sampling the Earth’s land and ice-covered surfaces twice every 12 days.
