Possibly as early as next year, an Indian national will likely make space travel history following Rakesh Sharma's groundbreaking trip in 1984. According to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, the United States will assist in the training and deployment of one Indian astronaut to the International Space Station by the end of 2024.
“The selection of the astronaut will be done by Isro, Nasa won’t be a part of it. Details of the mission are being worked out by Isro,” said Nelson, who is on a multi-city visit to India to enhance Indo-US space cooperation.
“India is a great partner for the US and also a great future partner for the activities of astronauts in space. The US will launch several private landers on the south pole of the Moon next year. But the fact that India was the first to land there deserves congratulation,” the Nasa chief said.
A high-level US space team led by Nelson called Space Minister Jitendra Singh and congratulated him on the momentous Chandrayaan-3 landing. He asked the minister to move forward with plans to launch India's first astronaut to the International Space Station (ISS) on a NASA rocket.
NASA is also seeing potential for Indian astronauts on private space missions. Nelson carried further the discussions that US President Joe Biden and PM Narendra Modi had agreed on earlier this year to launch a two-week joint India-US space flight next year.