The Artemis Accords now have 76 signatories, expanding the international framework around the next phase of lunar exploration. For India, the milestone comes weeks after NASA invited the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to participate in its planned Moon Base programme.

Albania, Croatia, Côte d’Ivoire and San Marino joined the Accords in September, taking participation to 76 countries. NASA says nearly 40% of the world’s nations are now part of the framework, which sets principles for peaceful, transparent and responsible exploration of the Moon, Mars and beyond.

India became the 27th signatory in June 2023. At the India-US Civil Space Joint Working Group meeting in Bengaluru in August, NASA invited ISRO to participate in its Moon Base programme. The two countries also agreed to advance discussions on open scientific-data sharing under the Accords.

India’s Moon Base opportunity

The invitation does not specify what India will contribute. NASA has said every Artemis Accords signatory can participate through scientific payloads, technology demonstrations, CubeSats and other capabilities. Any specific Indian contribution would require further agreements.

India, however, is developing its own increasingly ambitious lunar programme. ISRO’s Chandrayaan-4 is planned as a lunar sample-return mission, designed to collect samples from the Moon’s polar region and bring them back to Earth. Chandrayaan-5/LUPEX, being developed with Japan’s JAXA, will study lunar polar volatiles in situ.

These missions could give India experience and scientific capabilities relevant to a future international lunar infrastructure.

ISRO Shaping the Data Conversation

Scientific data could be another area of Indian participation. In May 2026, ISRO led an initial Artemis Accords discussion on advancing open-data practices. NASA subsequently held two workshops focused on making lunar scientific data more accessible, interoperable and reproducible across countries.

That is significant as more lunar missions target the same regions. Shared standards could allow researchers to combine observations from different spacecraft instead of treating each mission’s data separately.

Moon – Space Coperation

India-US space cooperation is also expanding into human spaceflight. ISRO’s 2025–26 annual report records that Indian astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla travelled to the International Space Station in June 2025 as part of the Axiom-4 mission and conducted seven microgravity experiments. ISRO also held discussions with NASA on potential cooperation related to Gaganyaan.

The Artemis relationship therefore sits alongside an existing programme of India-US cooperation, including the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission.

What Changes for India?

The significance of the 76-country milestone lies in the network developing around it. The Artemis Accords cover scientific-data sharing, interoperability, non-interference between missions, emergency assistance and protection of historically significant lunar sites. NASA says signatories are now working through technical meetings and workshops to put these principles into practice.

For India, that creates several possible avenues: contributing technology or science to NASA’s Moon Base effort, sharing lunar data, and working with a growing group of countries on standards for increasingly crowded lunar operations. What India’s specific contribution to the Moon Base remains undecided. But with Chandrayaan-4, LUPEX and its human-spaceflight programme advancing alongside deeper NASA cooperation, India is entering the next phase of lunar exploration with its own capabilities already taking shape.

A dying star nearing the end of its life is shedding material into space just 0.55 light-years from the Milky Way’s central black hole. And somehow, some of that material is holding on. New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope have revealed water and oxygen-rich dust surrounding IRS 3, an evolved star living remarkably close to Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the heart of our galaxy.

The finding gives astronomers a rare view of what happens when an ordinary stage of stellar evolution unfolds in an anything-but-ordinary neighbourhood.

A Dying Star Beside a Black Hole

IRS 3 is an asymptotic giant branch (AGB) star, a late stage in the life of stars like this one. As such stars age, they swell, cool and lose material through powerful stellar winds. IRS 3 is doing exactly that. Gas and dust are streaming away from the star, creating a large envelope around it.

The star sits only about 0.55 light-years from Sagittarius A*. That may sound distant, but on the scale of the Galactic Centre it is remarkably close. Earth is about 26,000 light-years away from the same black hole.

Around Sagittarius A* is a crowded, energetic environment filled with intense radiation, dense gas and powerful gravitational forces. Astronomers have long wondered how stars manage to evolve and shed material there. IRS 3 is offering an answer.

Webb Finds Water in the Stellar Outflow

NASA‘s James Webb Space Telescope looked at IRS 3 using its Mid-Infrared Instrument, or MIRI. Infrared observations are particularly useful here because the dust surrounding the star glows strongly at these wavelengths.

The observations revealed oxygen-rich dust in the star’s envelope. They also produced the first detection of water in this material. This does not mean Webb found a pool, cloud or droplets of water. The water exists as molecules mixed into the hot gas and dust surrounding the star.

That distinction matters because molecules can be vulnerable in the harsh environment around the Galactic Centre. Radiation can break them apart, while the conditions around a supermassive black hole can affect the material being expelled by nearby stars. Yet water molecules are present around IRS 3.

The Star is Feeding Its Surroundings

IRS 3 is losing material rapidly as it approaches the end of its life. Researchers estimate that the star is shedding roughly the mass of Earth every 18 days. That enormous outflow is important beyond IRS 3 itself.

When evolved stars lose their outer layers, they return material to the space between stars. The gas carries elements produced during the star’s lifetime, while newly formed dust becomes part of the reservoir from which future cosmic structures can emerge. IRS 3 is therefore caught in a familiar cycle of stellar life: a star is dying, but the material it releases can become part of something else.

What makes this case unusual is that the recycling process is happening almost next door to a supermassive black hole.

How Much Can Survive Here?

The observation does not mean that the black hole has little influence on its surroundings. Sagittarius A* still creates an extreme environment, and the researchers are interested precisely because IRS 3 shows that stellar material can persist within it.

“Galactic centres are among the most extreme environments,” said Florian Peißker of the University of Cologne, the study’s lead author to media. With Webb, researchers can now examine the material around stars such as IRS 3 in much greater detail and ask how stellar winds, dust formation and molecular chemistry behave so close to a black hole. The answer emerging from IRS 3 is intriguing: the environment may be extreme, but it does not necessarily shut down the chemistry of a dying star.

For IRS 3, the end of its stellar life is already underway. Its outer layers are drifting away into the Galactic Centre, carrying dust, molecules and the chemical ingredients of future cosmic systems with them. Even in the shadow of the Milky Way’s central black hole, a dying star is still leaving something behind.

When a flood spreads or a landslide cuts off a village, one of the first things authorities need is a clear picture of what has happened. India’s newest Earth-observation satellite could help close part of that information gap. Which areas are under water? Which roads are still open? Where are people stranded? Ground teams may be unable to reach affected areas, while conditions can change faster than assessments can be completed.

On September 4, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully launched GSLV-F17 carrying EOS-05, which ISRO describes as India’s first imaging satellite designed for geosynchronous orbit. The satellite was placed into a sub-geosynchronous transfer orbit before its subsequent orbital operations.

The launch is a technological milestone. But its larger significance may be in how India uses the satellite once it is in operation.

Seeing a Disaster From Above

Earth-observation data already play a role in India’s disaster management. ISRO’s systems are used for applications including flood mapping, damage assessment and emergency management, while the National Database for Emergency Management brings together geospatial information for disaster agencies.

EOS-05 adds a different capability because of its orbit. A geosynchronous satellite can repeatedly observe a broad region as the Earth rotates. That makes it possible to monitor large areas without relying entirely on a satellite making another pass over the location.

During a flood, that could help authorities understand the extent of inundation. After a landslide, imagery could contribute to assessing affected terrain. The same Earth-observation infrastructure has applications in agriculture, water resources, forestry and urban planning. But the satellite itself is not the solution.

The Real Test is Speed

There is a long distance between an image captured in space and a decision made in a district control room. Data have to be received, processed and interpreted. The resulting information has to reach officials and emergency teams quickly enough to matter. That is particularly important when disasters are unfolding by the hour.

A satellite cannot rescue people or reopen a blocked road. What it can do is help authorities decide where those efforts are most urgently needed.

That distinction is important. The value of space technology in disaster management is not simply that it produces better images. It is that those images can potentially reduce the time needed to understand what is happening on the ground.

From Mapping Damage to Managing Risk

India’s disaster landscape makes that capability increasingly relevant. Floods can spread across districts, while landslides can isolate mountain communities with little warning. Cyclones, forest fires and extreme rainfall can also leave authorities trying to assess large areas at once.

Satellite observation cannot predict every such event. But combined with weather forecasts, river-level data, ground reports and geographic information, it can provide a fuller picture of how a disaster is unfolding. That is where EOS-05 could become more than another addition to India’s satellite fleet.

The real measure of its success will not be the launch itself, or even the quality of the images it produces. It will be whether those images reach the right people quickly enough to change what happens on the ground. Because in a disaster, seeing more is useful only if it helps authorities act faster and act in the right place.