On February 13, 2025, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and United States President Donald Trump met at the White House. Prime Minister Modi was on an official working visit to the United States. A seven-page-long joint statement followed. It covered a range of issue areas for cooperation: defense, trade and investment, energy security, technology and innovation, multilateral cooperation, and people-to-people cooperation. Importantly, the “leaders announced the launch of the U.S.-India TRUST (Transforming the Relationship Utilizing Strategic Technology) initiative.”
One of the key areas of collaboration under the TRUST initiative, as highlighted in the joint statement, was civil space cooperation. The joint statement described 2025 as the pioneering year for both countries in civil space cooperation with the ISRO-NASA-AXIOM mission that will place Indian astronauts aboard the International Space Station for the first time and the launch of the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission that will study changes to Earth’s surface using L & S-band radars. The leaders emphasized cooperation on human spaceflight missions, spaceflight safety, and working on emerging areas like planetary protection. Furthermore, there were commitments toward commercial space collaboration in areas like connectivity, advanced spaceflight, satellite and space launch systems, space sustainability, space tourism, and advanced space manufacturing. Finally, both leaders announced INDUS Innovation, replicated after the INDUS-X defense platform, to promote industry and academic participation in space.
Following the leaders’ statements, this essay will explore the potential opportunities for both countries to take civil space cooperation forward under the TRUST initiative.
New Horizons: What are the Opportunities?
Strengthening Human Spaceflight Cooperation
Both India and the United States have increasingly converged on human spaceflight cooperation in the last two years, aligning with their envisaged Gaganyaan and Bhartiya Antariksh Station and NASA Gateway programs, respectively. With NASA’s decision to build new space stations through private sector involvement, after the retirement of the International Space Station in 2030, the collaborative opportunities are aplenty for both countries in this area. In 2024, both countries concluded the Strategic Framework for Human Spaceflight Cooperation to deepen interoperability and facilitate advanced training for ISRO astronauts at the NASA Johnson Space Centre. Later in August, two Indian astronauts completed their initial training and familiarization sessions with various onboard systems and the spacecraft. With ISRO successfully testing rendezvous, docking, and undocking capabilities with its SPADEX mission in March and April 2025, both countries can explore opportunities for performing a joint docking mission as well as a roadmap for ISRO’s participation in the NASA Gateway Program, a commitment from their June 2024 statement.
Moreover, for Indian space ecosystem to truly realize the value of investing in human spaceflight and space station to achieve socioeconomic goals, both NASA and ISRO could consider organizing a joint workshop on identifying various experiment opportunities aboard the International Space Station, end applications, and spinoff technologies, including unlocking commercial opportunities for both countries’ private ecosystems to participate in such joint missions.
Collaboration on Spaceflight Safety and Planetary Protection
The leaders’ joint statement expands to cover other collaborative areas of human spaceflight, such as spaceflight safety and planetary protection. Spaceflight safety encompasses the protection of astronauts and human crew module in all phases of space missions. The Office of Safety and Mission Assurance, which supervises spaceflight safety in all of NASA’s programs, can consider setting up a working group with ISRO Human Space Flight Centre in Bengaluru to exchange expertise and standards on spaceflight safety. Developing a common space safety standard for joint spaceflight missions will be pertinent for both countries to expand their coordination on any joint human spaceflight missions.
Planetary protection involves the protection of celestial bodies from contamination by Earth life and Earth from any alien contamination from these celestial bodies. With the United States and India being parties to the Outer Space Treaty, collaboration on planetary protection will be a vital part of their international obligation to prevent harmful contamination of celestial bodies as well as Earth during spaceflights or sample returns from celestial bodies. To this end, NASA’s Office of Planetary Protection and Planetary Protection Center of Excellence can work with ISRO to share expertise on infrastructure and validation technology to ensure spacecraft sterilization, cleanliness, and quarantine facilities. Finally, both countries can look to set up a joint lab for planetary protection in view of its importance for joint human space flight missions as well as joint missions on sample returns from the Moon, Mars and asteroids in the future.
Unlocking the Potential of Earth Observation Through NISAR and Other Remote Sensing Programs
The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission, scheduled for launch in June 2025, offers an opportunity for both countries to leverage the rich datasets of Earth mapped by the dual radars. Acknowledging the benefits, NASA conducted a workshop to raise awareness for its scientific community to leverage NISAR datasets and related funding opportunities in 2022. Similarly, on April 29, 2025, ISRO’s Space Application Centre (SAC), with IN-SPACe and New Space India Limited, has planned to organize a NISAR awareness workshop for Indian non-governmental entities “to inform, engage, and encourage” them to utilize NISAR’s capabilities and datasets for technical and commercial opportunities to build Earth observation applications. To expand on the workshops, both the U.S. Office of Space Commerce and the Indian Department of Space can release joint challenges under the newly proposed INDUS innovation to build applications, leveraging datasets from the NISAR mission. Furthermore, both the United States and India can look to build applications from NISAR datasets for other countries in the Indo-Pacific by roping in the private sector, complementing their vision for space under the Quad. Finally, considering that Indian space startups and companies are rapidly advancing on their Earth observation capabilities like hyperspectral imagery, synthetic aperture radar, as well as edge computing and data fusion, both countries can explore possibilities of having the Indian private sector participate in programs like NASA’s Commercial SmallSat Data Acquisition Program. This will ensure access of market for many Indian space companies that have expanded or are looking to expand their footprint to the United States while enabling NASA and the United States to benefit from these Indian technological advancements in Earth observation.
Fostering Academic and Industrial Collaboration Through INDUS Innovation
Considering that the joint statements emphasized on commercial space collaboration in connectivity, advanced spaceflight, satellite and space launch systems, space sustainability, space tourism, and advanced space manufacturing, these areas can be pursued under the newly announced INDUS Innovation. Replicating the INDUS-X, a defense innovation bridge that has led to several accelerators and academic and private sector collaborations between Indian and U.S. defense innovation ecosystems, the INDUS Innovation can serve as a space innovation bridge to foster commercial space collaboration in the aforementioned areas between both countries.
Easing Restrictions on Exchange of Communication Between Indian and U.S. Companies Under the Same Holding
Both countries initiated the India-U.S. Strategic Trade Dialogue in 2023 to address long-standing barriers to strategic trade and technology and industrial cooperation, including in commercial and civil space sectors. Currently, following India’s space sector reforms in 2020, many Indian companies and startups are expanding to the United States. Amidst these developments, these Indian startups find it difficult to communicate or exchange information with their U.S. counterparts owing to International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) compliance. Such restrictions will curb technological collaboration between both countries’ commercial space sectors, a goal envisioned by the leaders’ joint statement. Pursuantly, the India-U.S Strategic Trade Dialogue may look to address these concerns and ease restrictions on the exchange of communications between Indian and U.S. entities of the same holding company.
Conclusion
The India-U.S. civil space cooperation under the TRUST initiative represents opportunities for both countries to deepen their ties built on mutual trust and build technologies for a better future. Strengthening human spaceflight cooperation and collaborating on remote sensing programs and applications—not only for themselves but also for the world—will yield significant benefits and capacities for the global community to address global challenges. Most importantly, leveraging the respective private space sectors through the recently launched INDUS Innovation promises growth for both countries’ space industries. Easing restrictions on the exchange of communications between Indian and U.S. companies of the same holding will catalyze commercial collaboration.
