NASA reportedly plans to cooperate with New Delhi to help India launch its first space station into orbit next year.
The United States government is willing to help India train and send its astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) by the end of next year. In a statement on Tuesday, NASA administrator Bill Nelson said that the selection process for these astronauts will be done by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).
NASA Prepared To Help India in Space Ventures
He added that the Indian side is still working out details of the mission. Nelson noted that New Delhi is a great partner for the US and also a great future partner for the activities of astronauts going into space.
The US is planning to launch several private landers on the south pole of the Moon next year. However, the fact that India was the first to land in that region deserves congratulations and praise. Nelson previously led a high-level US delegation that called on Indian Space Minister Jinendra Singh and congratulated him on the historic landing of Chandrayaan-3, as per the Times of India.
When discussing India's potential first space station, Nelson said New Delhi may want a commercial space station by 2040. He added that if the South Asian country wants, it can collaborate with NASA and the space agency will be willing to help.
Nelson said that NASA is also ready to plan an interplanetary mission with India but noted that it depends on ISRO. The NASA administrator urged Singh to send India's first astronauts to expedite the program related to sending his country's first astronaut aboard a NASA rocket to the ISS.
The NASA administrator spoke about Indo-U.S. collaboration and said the two countries were "doing a lot of science together." He added that India will launch the most expensive satellite, the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR), in the first quarter of 2024.
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India's Potential Space Station
Nelson's trip to India marks the start of a series of strategic discussions to strengthen the partnership between the two nations' space agencies. He noted that commercial space stations can open many opportunities for research, including pharma research in zero gravity, according to India West.
The NASA chief is expected to visit Bengaluru's NISAR spacecraft facilities over hardware development on the Earth-observing mission. NISAR's launch next year is pivotal for understanding various aspects of our planet's ecosystems, natural hazards, and climate change.
On top of NISAR, a $1 billion spacecraft, India and the US are working on various space initiatives. These include the Gaganyaan project, a joint India-U.S. spaceflight, and cooperation in areas such as radiation impact studies and space health, said the Hindustan Times.
Nelson talked more about NISAR, saying that it would measure any change on our planet's surface, land, water, or ice mass movement. He said this would provide important information and give a three-dimensional environment model.
