US, India Discuss Advancing Space Partnership, Announce Initiatives

New Delhi: The US and India are set to strengthen space cooperation, including for human spaceflight, and joint space exploration, and are expected to facilitate commercial partnerships between space companies of both countries to advance shared interests in the growing space economy.

After US President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in June 2023 committed to work together to “reach new frontiers across all sectors of space cooperation” and India’s signing of the Artemis Accords, the two nations reached an inflection point on collaboration across civil, security, and commercial space sectors, the White House said in a press statement.

To mark this significant progress in cooperation, the US Principal Deputy National Security Advisor (PDNSA) Jon Finer, Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, and Indian Ambassador to the US Vinay Kwatra recently travelled to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

As part of their visit to Houston, PDNSA Finer and Deputy Secretary Campbell met with representatives from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Indian Space Re-search Organisation (ISRO), and space industry leaders to identify new opportunities to further strengthen our burgeoning space partnership, the statement said.