STATE TIMES NEWS
NEW DELHI: “In a nutshell, it should suffice to say that India and the USA are to break new ground in the “Space”. And, the credit goes to Prime Minister Narendra Modi who, during the last 9 years, took a series of unorthodox and path-breaking decisions, which enabled India to achieve a quantum jump in our Space sector capabilities, as a result of which the USA which had begun its space journey several years before us is today seeking collaboration with us as an equal partner.
This was stated here today by Union Minister, Dr Jitendra Singh, while briefing the media about several significant decisions and agreements accomplished during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ongoing USA visit, especially with relation to signing of “Artemis Accord ” and Joint Indo-US mission to the International Space Station in 2024.
Dr Jitendra said, could anything give us greater pride than to realise that the country like USA which landed the first human benign on the surface of Moon when we were singing nursery rhymes about Moon is today seeking our inputs and our expertise on Moon mission.
Explaining to the media, the Minister said, the purpose of the Artemis Accord is a common vision with USA and other countries via principles, guidelines and best practices so that we could supplement each other’s activities for peaceful purposes with transparency and also work together for avoiding harmful activities.
On the other hand, the joint mission to the International Space Station, said Dr Jitendra Singh, which is separate of signing of Artemis Accord will develop a framework for joint mission to the International Space Station in 2024, which the USA envisages as the possibilities of closer cooperation between the space agencies of the two countries to get closer to the realities of Moon and subsequent to Mars and other planets.
As for Science & Technology, Dr Jitendra informed that on Semiconductors, Micron will invest 800 Million Dollars with additional financial support from the Indian government. Similarly, the US Quantum Consortium has welcomed and invited the Indian Quantum industry as its members.
The agreement signed during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s historic US visit between India and the US on cooperation in Space Research will take our bilateral relations to a new high, Dr Jitendra Singh said today.
“As PM Modi said, ‘Even sky is not the limit for cooperation with the US’,” the Minister said .
Dr Jitendra said, India will contribute to the International Space Station next year as part of the India-US collaboration in the Space Science field. US President Joe Biden has already confirmed this in the White House after a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday.
Dr Jitendra Singh said ISRO is likely to team up with NASA as it plans to return to the moon with a manned mission by 2025.
The joint statement by India and the United States during PM Modi’s ongoing visit said NASA would provide “advanced training” to Indian astronauts at one of its facilities.
ISRO and NASA are realizing a joint satellite mission called NISAR (NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) for earth science studies. As part of ISRO’s prestigious Gaganyaanprogramme, the cooperation opportunities with countries and space agencies having expertise in human space flight are being explored.