India, U.S. call for more collaboration in space exploration, launch new innovation bridge

2025 marks a pioneering year for U.S.-India civil space cooperation, focusing on long-duration human spaceflight missions and technology collaboration.

Calling for ramping up collaboration in space exploration, including on long-duration human spaceflight missions, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump hailed 2025 as a “pioneering year for U.S.-India civil space cooperation”. The two leaders, who also launched INDUS Innovation bridge, held wide-ranging talks on Thursday (Friday, February 14, 2025 - IST) focussing on broadening the bilateral partnership, including in the fields of defence, energy, space and critical technology.

Modi and Trump called for “more collaboration in space exploration, including on long-duration human spaceflight missions, spaceflight safety and sharing of expertise and professional exchanges in emerging areas, including planetary protection,” according to a joint statement issued after the discussions.

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“The leaders committed to further commercial space collaboration through industry engagements in conventional and emerging areas, such as connectivity, advanced spaceflight, satellite and space launch systems, space sustainability, space tourism and advanced space manufacturing,” it said.

The Prime Minister’s visit to the U.S. from February 12 to February 13 came nearly three weeks after the January 20 inauguration of President Trump.

In the joint statement, the leaders “hailed 2025 as a pioneering year for US-India civil space cooperation,” with plans for a NASA-ISRO effort through AXIOM to bring the first Indian astronaut to the International Space Station (ISS).

It also mentioned an early launch of the joint ‘NISAR’ mission, the first-of-its-kind to systematically map changes to the Earth’s surface using dual radars. The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar or ‘NISAR’ will be used by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for a variety of purposes, including mapping agricultural areas and landslide-prone areas.