The US-based Space Exploration and Research Agency (SERA) and Blue Origin announced India as a partner in their human spaceflight program, offering Indian citizens a chance to fly on Blue Origin’s reusable rocket, New Shepard, past the Karman line into space.

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