NASA invites ISRO to join Moon base programme, deepening India-US space ties

NASA has invited the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to join its Moon Base programme, taking India-US space cooperation beyond Earth observation and astronaut missions and towards a sustained human presence on the Moon.

The invitation came during the ninth meeting of the India-US Civil Space Joint Working Group, held at ISRO headquarters in Bengaluru on August 5 and 6. The meeting was co-chaired by officials from the US State Department and NASA and their Indian counterparts and focused on expanding civil and commercial space cooperation.

“NASA has invited @ISRO to join its Moon Base program, deepening the U.S.-India deep space partnership!” US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor said in a post on X.

He added that the announcement came as the US State Department and NASA co-chaired the Civil Space Joint Working Group in Bengaluru, advancing the US-India TRUST initiative.

The US Embassy in India, in a separate post, said, “Mankind’s next giant leap is underway!” It said NASA is “building a Moon Base: humanity’s first outpost on the Moon” and that the project will drive lunar scientific breakthroughs and prepare for crewed missions to Mars.

The planned outpost is expected to be near the Moon’s South Pole and is aimed at enabling astronauts to live, work and conduct research on the lunar surface through a combination of crewed and uncrewed missions. The programme is part of NASA’s broader Artemis effort to establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon and prepare for future deep-space exploration.

For India, the invitation comes as ISRO builds its own long-term lunar and human-spaceflight capabilities. India’s Space Vision 2047 includes a target to land an Indian on the Moon by 2040. It also envisages the Bharatiya Antariksh Station, with its first module targeted for 2028 and the full station planned by 2035.

ISRO’s successful Chandrayaan-3 soft landing in 2023 also gives India experience that could be relevant to future international lunar missions. The mission demonstrated India’s ability to safely land a spacecraft and operate a rover on the Moon.

The latest invitation follows the successful NASA-ISRO NISAR Earth-observation mission, launched in July 2025, and Indian astronaut Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla’s 18-day Axiom-4 mission to the International Space Station in 2025, during which he conducted seven microgravity experiments.

The two countries also agreed to continue discussions on open scientific data sharing and future cooperation in space science and human spaceflight technology.