US To Send Indian Astronaut To International Space Station By End of 2024: US Amabassador

Mumbai: America will send an Indian astronaut to the International Space Station by the end of this year, said Eric Garcetti, the US Ambassador to India while speaking at an event to mark the 248th Independence Day of the United States on Wednesday.

According to him, the NISAR project, a joint Earth-observing mission between US space agency NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), is also expected to be launched by the end of 2024.

“We are going to put an Indian astronaut into the International Space Station this year,” he said. “We promised when PM Modi came to the US in 2023, we will do this and our mission is still on track to be able to go in space this year,” he added.

The diplomat accepted that India landed ‘Chandrayaan 3’ on the Moon at a fraction of the cost that the US incurred on a similar lunar mission.