PM Modi-Biden Bonhomie Propels NASA-ISRO Towards Moon, Mars And Beyond

India's first mission to the International Space Station, in collaboration with the US, was among the highlights of the agreements between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden at the White House on Thursday.

President Biden said the US would fly an Indian astronaut on the International Space Station in 2024. In another significant development, India will join the Artemis Accords, a framework of legal options that opens up collaboration on space exploration in a big way.

India has selected four male test pilots from the Indian Air Force as part of the first astronaut corps, say sources, but they have been trained on Russian systems.

Whether one of these four that have been already selected will fly on the Space X or Boeing's Star Liner rockets or a new person will be selected will need to be decided very soon. The possibility of an Indian woman astronaut heading to space is also now wide open in an Indian and American election year. It makes for great optics for both the democracies.

Sources in the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said India will obviously pay for training the astronaut and for the rocket ride. It could cost upwards of Rs 200 crore for a single launch. The training can be completed in about six months. The American private sector handles the training and launch. If all goes to plan, a launch before the general election is an open possibility.

An Indian going to space will not be a challenge in times of space tourism.

Also, this one-off Indian astronaut visiting the International Space Station will not hamper India's Gaganyaan program, which aims to launch an Indian astronaut from Indian soil on an Indian rocket in late 2024, if all tests go as per plan. Dr Jitendra Singh, India's Space Minister and a Minister in the Prime Minister's office, confirms ISRO's Gaganyaan will continue to get the required funding, the new India-American mission is a great celebration of joint capabilities of two space faring nations. Mr Singh says the era of technology denial for India is rightfully over, now we are equal partners.

"Domestic human space flight capability development" will go on unhindered, a top source asserts, as India can't afford to not have this critical capability on its own steam, more so since it is part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Atmanirbhar Bharat program.

One important fallout could be the development of interoperable technologies and space grade standards, which will help the Indian industry.

On India joining the Artemis Accords, the ISRO source said, "These are non-binding accords and have no financial commitments as strings attached to it, and yes, India is not joining the US-led Artemis Program but this certainly opens up huge possibilities as the moon, Mars, Venus and possibilities of making human habitations outside the earth are all already on the horizon of the Indian space agency.

This new fraternal bonding in space by PM Modi and President Biden is essentially an appropriate carry-forward of a great satellite project that has been conceived by NASA and ISRO, called the NISAR satellite or the "NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar Satellite". It is the world's single most expensive civilian earth imaging satellite ever to be built; it costs upwards of $1.2 billion. This is a unique satellite that will help save lives by monitoring deformations on the earth's surface and tracking climate change. Jointly made by the scientists of the two countries, it is awaiting its launch from India's space port Sriharikota in 2024.

This new space chemistry comes 60 years after the US helped India launch its first sounding rocket, the Nike Apache, launched on November 21, 1963, from Thumba. The US also played a role in India's satellite program, and two Indian astronauts were selected and trained to be flown on-board the Space Shuttle in the last century, before the Space Shuttle encountered twin disasters, which killed the Indian-born American astronaut Kalpana Chawla.

But relations between US and India went into a tailspin after India blasted atomic weapons in 1974 and 1998, so much so that America scuttled the transfer of cryogenic engine technology to India. This left quite a wrinkle in space relations.

A brave new chapter was initiated by India when American instruments were accommodated on India's maiden mission to the moon, Chandrayaan-1, launched in 2008. This was a mission where India was the captain, and the Americans were the players. But it was this generous accommodation of NASA instruments, even as ISRO continued under US sanctions, that ultimately changed the geological history of the moon. The joint discovery of the presence of water molecules on the lunar surface opened the doors for future habitation of the moon.

Another big takeaway from the Chandrayaan missions was India landing its flag on the southernmost point of the moon, nearest to the South Pole. In the long run, it also gives India rights over that territory on the moon, in a way, and so, the inking of the Artemis Accord is an affirmation of India's deep lunar exploration capabilities.

It is amply clear that when the world's oldest and world's largest democracies cooperate on earth, it only makes music in space.

To be sure, India will never give up on having independent access to space on its own rocket technology. India's end-to-end capabilities in space are being ably and suitably recognised.

Indo-US relations have hit a new high orbit, thanks to the Biden-Modi bonhomie at the White House. Both countries will explore new unchartered bilateral frontiers.

The US has the most advanced space technology and India is known for low-cost engineering.

Top ISRO sources called the space pact a "historical and right step, a win-win for both countries".

India's mushrooming space start-up sector needs the massive American market to commercialise its innovative home-grown technologies, and without the Artemis Accords deal, it would have been difficult, as India would have been looked at with suspicion. Now, after PM Modi "unlocked the space sector", this was a natural step to follow up with, said a top source at ISRO.

Sending an Indian astronaut aboard an American spaceship to the International Space Station fits in well with India's own Gaganyaan program. The only difference is that the Indian will be ferried not on an Indian rocket to space but on an American private sector rocket.