NASA ISRO to sign for Artemis accord during PM Modi US visit know its significance

Bilateral agreements are going to happen in many ways during the state visit of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi to America. One of these is the agreement named Artemis Accord between the American Space Agency NASA and the Indian Space Research Institute, ISRO. The objective of this agreement will be to promote space cooperation between the two countries. With this, India will join those countries which are allies of America in the field of space. There is no doubt that India can benefit greatly from the Artemis Agreement. But it is not that there are only benefits from this agreement. It has to be analyzed deeply and it has to be seen that the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

Who’s Who in the Artemus Group
The purpose of the agreement will be to increase space cooperation between the two countries and to exchange space related information among themselves. So far 23 countries have joined the US space agency NASA under the Artemis agreement, including Australia, Brazil, Bahrain, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Romania , Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, and the UK.

What is the Artemis Agreement
The Artemis agreement is part of the Artemis program of the US space agency NASA, in which NASA’s main goal is to reach humans on the Moon. In this, NASA is working for the permanent presence of humans on the Moon. Future missions to Mars have also been included in this agreement. After becoming a part of Artemis, India and the US will work with each other by sharing data, technology and resources to ensure safe and sustainable exploration of the Moon.

Lunar missions will help
This agreement between the two countries can be a very beneficial deal for India. This is happening at a time when India’s ISRO is going to launch its Chandrayaan 3 mission. Both the countries are already cooperating with each other on Moon missions. But this cooperation was limited only to sharing of information. But now both countries will also share resources and technology etc. for the moon.

At present, 23 countries are included in the group made up of Artemis agreements between NASA and other countries. (Representational photo: Wikimedia Commons)

cooperation is already happening
NASA and ISRO have had mission-specific collaborations in the past as well. Both are already cooperating with each other on environmental and climate change related problems like natural hazards, snow melting ground water supply etc. Apart from this, the work on NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) campaign is being done like a partnership of both.

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and it will be beneficial
America and India have agreed to send Indian astronauts to the International Space Station. It will take time now, but the benefit of cooperation on space travel can definitely be found in the Gaganyaan campaign. Apart from this, four NASA astronauts will orbit the Moon next year and the next year two passengers will stay on the Moon for a long time. India will definitely get the benefit of this.

At present, the benefits for ISRO are more visible in the Artemis agreement. (Representational photo: Wikimedia Commons)

One big question?
Countries like Russia and China are not included in the Artemis agreement. But Russia is important for India, will it affect the bilateral space cooperation between India and Russia. This is a matter to be seen because Russia has been opposing the Artemis campaign since the beginning and till now Russia has a huge cooperation in the Gaganyaan campaign.

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But the thing to see is that India will get more benefit in space cooperation from America than Russia. On the other hand, today, when China is determined to overtake America in space competition, NASA’s cooperation with India will prove to be very beneficial. At the same time, America has also taken a big leap in space competition by including India in its Artemis group. The presence of India in its camp will serve to provide another strength in its space competition.

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Tags: India, ISRO, Moon, Nasa, Research, USA