Indian astronaut to join ISS crew in ’24

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Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden—expanding collaboration on emerging space technologies. Nelson added that the two national space agencies have formed a joint working group on human spaceflight collaboration, which will work on upcoming human space missions, as well as other space research projects. The India-US space collaboration will also work on a major satellite—the Nasa-Isro Synthetic Aperture Radar (Nisar).

Calling the satellite a “great observatory", Nelson said, “There is so much that India and the US can do together. We’re already doing a lot of science together—a good example of that is that in Q1 2024, in a joint venture, India will launch Nisar. This is a part of great observatories.

Four such observatories, combined with 25 spacecrafts looking at the earth, is a combination that will help us precisely determine what’s happening to our planet and its climate." The satellite combines two spectrum bands—one each for Isro and Nasa—which will expand its capability of analyzing terrestrial, atmospheric and weather anomalies. Integration of the satellite’s capability was conducted at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California, while testing is currently underway at the U.R. Rao Satellite Centre in Bengaluru.

Nisar is expected to be launched into orbit aboard a mission of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle—India’s heaviest capacity rocket—some time next year. To be sure, the manned space mission to carry an Indian astronaut to the ISS is different from Gaganyaan—India’s own manned space mission that aims to launch an astronaut from home soil, and carry them to the lunar surface. The first unmanned pilot of the Gaganyaan mission is expected to be conducted early next year.