"NASA invites ISRO to join Moon Base programme amid US-China lunar rivalry"
Artemis Accords
bilateral agreements led by NASA establishing norms for lunar and deep-space exploration, covering transparency, interoperability, and safety zones.
Cislunar space
the volume of space between Earth and the Moon, including the Moon's surface; increasingly contested for strategic and commercial reasons.
India's civil space relationship with the United States has matured from episodic technical exchanges into a structured bilateral architecture underpinned by both multilateral norms and bilateral instruments. The foundational multilateral framework remains the Outer Space Treaty (1967), which establishes that space exploration shall be conducted for the benefit of all countries and that no nation may claim sovereignty over celestial bodies. Layered on top of this is the Artemis Accords, launched by NASA in 2020 as a set of bilateral agreements — not a formal treaty requiring legislative ratification — grounded in the principles of transparency, interoperability, peaceful purposes, open data sharing, and the designation of safety zones around operational sites. India formally joined in 2023 as the 27th signatory; the Accords now count approximately 70 member countries. Critically, neither China nor Russia is a signatory, which has given the Accords an increasingly alliance-like character.
India's domestic space policy environment has also shifted significantly. The Space Sector Reforms of 2020 opened the sector to private participation, repositioning ISRO as a strategic and R&D anchor rather than the sole operator. The Indian Space Policy of 2023 formalised this architecture, creating roles for IN-SPACe (the regulatory body) and NSIL (the commercial arm). These reforms made India a more credible partner for complex, multi-agency international missions and signalled to NASA that ISRO could engage not just as a government-to-government counterpart but as part of a broader industrial ecosystem.
NASA's Moon Base programme is the infrastructure phase of the broader Artemis initiative, which aims to land humans on the Moon and subsequently establish a permanent research station where astronauts can live and work for extended periods. Humans last visited the Moon in 1972 (Apollo 17), making the Artemis programme the first sustained return effort in over five decades. The Moon Base is planned near the lunar south pole — chosen because sunlight is available for longer durations (enabling solar power) and because permanently shadowed craters hold significant water-ice deposits that could be converted into drinking water, oxygen, and rocket propellant (hydrogen and oxygen), dramatically reducing the cost of deep-space missions.
NASA is leaning heavily on private industry for this effort. Contracts have already been awarded to Astrolab ($219 million) and Lunar Outpost ($220 million) for lunar terrain vehicles, Blue Origin ($188 million) for delivery task orders, and Astrobotic, Firefly Aerospace, and Intuitive Machines ($600 million) for four robotic precursor missions. …
Which of the following pairs is/are correctly matched?
Spacecraft : Purpose
1.Cassini-Huygens : Orbiting the Venus and transmitting data to the Earth
2.Messenger : Mapping and investigating the Mercury
3.Voyager 1 and 2 : Exploring the outer solar system
Select the correct answer using the code given below.
With reference to 'Astrosat', the astronomical observatory launched by India, which of the following statements is/are correct?
1.Other than USA and Russia, India is the only country to have launched a similar observatory into space.
2.Astrosat is a 2000 kg satellite placed in an orbit at 1650 km above the surface of the Earth.
Select the correct answer using the code given below.
With reference to the Artemis Accords, consider the following statements:
1.The Artemis Accords are a formal multilateral treaty requiring legislative ratification by signatory states.
2.India joined the Artemis Accords in 2023.
3.The Accords explicitly prohibit signatory countries from cooperating with non-signatory countries on space missions.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
The lunar south pole is considered strategically significant for future Moon Base programmes primarily because of which of the following?
1.Longer durations of sunlight enabling sustained solar power generation
2.Presence of water-ice deposits in permanently shadowed craters
3.Lower surface gravity compared to other lunar regions
Select the correct answer using the code given below.
Consider the following pairs:
Lunar/Space Programme — Lead Country/Agency
1.Artemis Moon Base — USA (NASA)
2.International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) — China and Russia
3.NISAR — India (ISRO) alone
Which of the pairs given above is/are correctly matched?
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