Speaking at the Bengaluru Space Expo 2026, US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor confirmed a formal NASA invitation for ISRO to join the American Moon base programme and framed the US private space market as newly accessible to Indian entrepreneurs — the clearest signal yet that Washington intends India’s fast-growing private space sector, not just ISRO, as a partner in its next phase of lunar exploration.
The ninth meeting of the US-India Civil Space Joint Working Group has been quietly reshaping the terms of the two countries’ space relationship for months, but on 7 September 2026 that shift was stated in unusually direct terms in public. Speaking at the Bengaluru Space Expo 2026, US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor told an audience of Indian space entrepreneurs that NASA has formally invited the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to participate in its Moon base programme, and that the US market itself — not merely government-to-government cooperation — is now open to India’s private space companies. “NASA has officially invited ISRO to join us in the Moon base program. Make no mistake: we’re going back to the Moon, and we want India by our side on the lunar surface,” Gor said. Addressing the entrepreneurs directly, he added: “To every Indian space entrepreneur in this room: the American market is open to you. Our investors are watching you. Our ecosystems welcome you. We are here to help you make that leap.”
From government cooperation to private-sector co-creation
What distinguishes this announcement from the steady drumbeat of India-US space cooperation news over recent years is its explicit reframing of the relationship’s centre of gravity. Gor described the shift as moving “from cooperation to co-creation,” telling the audience that the two countries “are no longer just sharing data; we are co-designing instruments, co-funding startups, and co-authoring the future of human discovery.” He named specific Indian private space companies by name — Pixxel, GalaxEye, Digantara, Bellatrix, Skyroot and Agnikul — as the kind of firms the US market is now positioning itself to work with directly, a departure from a relationship that has historically run primarily through ISRO and NASA as government agencies. India opened its space sector to private players in recent years and established a dedicated venture fund to support space startups, and Gor’s remarks amount to an American signal that this domestic liberalisation is being met with reciprocal market access on the US side, rather than remaining a purely internal Indian policy shift.
The invitation to join NASA’s Moon base programme sits within the broader Artemis programme, under which NASA plans to send astronauts on progressively more ambitious missions to the Moon, partly to prepare the technical and logistical foundations for eventual crewed missions to Mars. India is a signatory to the Artemis Accords, the US-led framework of principles governing lunar and deep-space exploration, and Monday’s remarks are the most explicit public statement to date that NASA intends this signatory status to translate into a concrete role in lunar base infrastructure rather than remaining a diplomatic formality.
NISAR as the relationship’s proof point
Gor grounded the wider partnership in the NISAR Earth-observation satellite, a joint NASA-ISRO mission, describing it as evidence that the collaboration produces results with immediate, practical value rather than only long-term scientific prestige. “When we look at NISAR, we see that NASA and ISRO didn’t build a monument to scientific theory; they built a lifesaver. Literally,” he said, citing NISAR’s radar data penetrating cloud cover and dust to help guide emergency responders after a major earthquake in Venezuela roughly two months earlier. The choice of NISAR as the reference point is notable: it is a mission built on shared instrumentation and data infrastructure rather than a one-off technology transfer, and Gor’s framing suggests Washington sees it as the template for future co-development rather than an exception.
Gor also placed the space announcement within a wider push toward joint standard-setting, saying the two countries are “setting global norms: from space traffic coordination to the upcoming World Radiocommunication Conference in Shanghai” — a signal that India-US space cooperation is increasingly intended to shape international rules on orbital traffic and spectrum allocation, not only bilateral projects.
Why it matters
For India’s private space sector — still young relative to established American and European players, but growing quickly on the back of domestic liberalisation and a series of successful ISRO missions — explicit, named-company acknowledgment from the US ambassador at a major industry expo is a meaningfully different kind of signal than routine government-to-government cooperation statements. It suggests Indian space startups can expect a more direct path to US investors, customers and regulatory familiarity than has typically been the case, at a moment when the global private space economy is expanding rapidly and India has set its own target of capturing a substantial share of it. The NASA Moon base invitation, if it translates into concrete technical or funding commitments in the coming months, would represent a genuine elevation of India’s role in lunar exploration beyond its existing Chandrayaan programme and into US-led deep-space infrastructure.
The caveats are the ones that apply to any high-level diplomatic announcement of this kind: an ambassador’s public remarks at an industry expo, however specific, are not the same as a signed agreement, funding commitment or defined technical scope, and the “invitation” to ISRO will need to be followed by concrete programme details before its practical significance can be assessed. Indian private space companies will also need to navigate US export-control and technology-transfer regimes that have historically been a friction point in defence- and space-adjacent cooperation between the two countries, regardless of the market-access rhetoric. Readers should expect follow-up reporting once the ninth US-India Civil Space Joint Working Group publishes more detailed outcomes.
– Vijaya Yandrapalli
Key facts
– US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor confirmed NASA’s formal invitation to ISRO for its Moon base programme, at Bengaluru Space Expo 2026, 7 September 2026
– Gor stated the American space market is “open” to Indian private space entrepreneurs, naming Pixxel, GalaxEye, Digantara, Bellatrix, Skyroot and Agnikul
– Framed within the ninth US-India Civil Space Joint Working Group and India’s status as an Artemis Accords signatory
– NISAR (joint NASA-ISRO Earth-observation satellite) cited as evidence of the partnership’s practical value, referencing its use in recent Venezuela earthquake response
– Also referenced joint work on global space-traffic norms ahead of the World Radiocommunication Conference in Shanghai
