India, US working for training ISRO astronauts at NASA's Johnson Space Center

The Lunar Gateway Programme aims to build a space station around the moon as part of the collaborative Artemis programme spearheaded by the US.

New Delhi: India and the United States are working on securing a carrier for the first-ever joint effort between NASA and ISRO astronauts at the International Space Station.

They have inked a Strategic Framework for Human Spaceflight Cooperation to deepen interoperability in space and work toward commencing advanced training for ISRO astronauts at the NASA Johnson Space Centre. They agreed that India would next year join the US Space Command’s Global Sentinel Exercise at Vandenburg Space Force Base.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s National Security Advisor, Ajith Doval, and his United States counterpart Jake Sullivan chaired the second meeting of the India-US initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET) in New Delhi on Monday.

They agreed on launching a new partnership between the US Space Force and the Indian startups, 114ai and 3rdiTech, including in advancing space situational awareness, data fusion technologies, and infra-red sensor semiconductor manufacturing.

They also decided to strengthen defence space cooperation through the Advanced Domains Defence Dialogue. The second episode was held in Washington DC in May 2024. The drill featured an India-US space table-top exercise and included bilateral expert exchanges on emerging domains including artificial intelligence.

They explored opportunities for India’s participation in the Lunar Gateway Program of the US, as well as well as for joint avenues for collaboration in other space technologies