BENGALURU:
US Ambassador
to India
Eric Garcetti
Friday visited the
Isro
headquarters and concluded a series of high-level meetings relating to deepening collaboration across a range of domains from Earth observation to human spaceflight and lunar exploration.
Garcetti, who met Isro chairman S Somanath with a delegation, proposed developing a “QUAD satellite” involving the partnership of India, the US, Japan and Australia.
Other significant discussions covered potential joint missions including an advanced imaging spectrometer satellite building on the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (Nisar) mission, India’s proposal for a G-20 satellite dedicated to environmental monitoring and climate change, and the possibility of using India’s Gaganyaan cargo module to transfer supplies to the International Space Station.
Addressing opportunities in space technology development, Somanath highlighted potential for US-India university collaboration on advanced detectors and electronics packaging. He emphasised the importance of standardising docking interfaces across human spaceflight programmes to enable broader utilisation of space platforms.
Officials from both nations also discussed joining efforts to deploy a navigation architecture on the lunar surface or in orbit around the Moon to support future exploration missions.
The meetings concluded with a commitment to further strengthen the US-India partnership in space and explore new cooperative endeavours across the civilian space programme. Officials from both sides expressed optimism about the future prospects for collaboration.
Discussions covered a range of areas of mutual interest, including advancing space science, space economy initiatives, joint working groups, the Artemis Accords, and use of US laser reflector payloads on Chandrayaan-3.
“I’m deeply impressed by Isro’s incredible accomplishments in
space exploration
. The US greatly values our partnership with India’s world-class space program as we pursue new frontiers of discovery,” Garcetti said.
Garcetti and Somanath also participated at the US-India Space Cooperation Conference held in the city, where they further batted for enhanced partnership between the two countries.
