NASA invites ISRO to join Moon Base programme near south pole

NASA has invited the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to participate in its ‘Moon Base’ programme, The Hindu reports. The invitation came at the ninth India-U.S. Civil Space Joint Working Group meeting at ISRO headquarters last week, under the Artemis Accords partnership. The base will be built piece by piece near the Moon’s south pole, where sunlight is abundant and water-ice deposits exist in permanently shadowed craters. The target is for it to become humanity’s first outpost on another celestial body around 2030.

The move deepens space cooperation between India and the United States, which has included training for ISRO’s Gaganyaan astronauts and joint missions like the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar. However, the programme is also part of a broader geopolitical contest: NASA’s budget request describes the base as a means to establish U.S. “superiority on the Moon”. China and Russia have announced plans for an International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) near the south pole by 2035, involving 17 countries. India, which chairs the BRICS space agencies meeting with China, may face pressure to choose sides as lunar infrastructure becomes an extension of Earthly alliances.