India and France have deepened their space partnership under the Innovation 2026 framework, extending cooperation beyond satellites to human spaceflight under Gaganyaan, the joint thermal infrared satellite TRISHNA, and space start-up ecosystems. ISRO and CNES are the nodal agencies. TRISHNA — Thermal infraRed Imaging Satellite for High-resolution Natural resource Assessment — will monitor urban heat, water stress, and ecosystem carbon flux, representing a flagship Indo-French Earth observation collaboration with direct climate and agriculture applications.

India-France space cooperation is one of India's oldest and most substantive bilateral space partnerships, formalised through the ISRO-CNES (Centre National d'Études Spatiales) relationship. The current phase, anchored under Innovation 2026, marks a qualitative shift: from co-building remote sensing satellites to sharing human spaceflight expertise for Gaganyaan, India's first crewed mission.

TRISHNA (Thermal infraRed Imaging Satellite for High-resolution Natural resource Assessment) is the centrepiece Earth observation project. It will be jointly developed by ISRO and CNES and will operate in the thermal infrared spectrum to monitor land surface temperature, urban heat islands, crop water stress, and ecosystem carbon fluxes — data critical for climate modelling, precision agriculture, and water resource management. This makes TRISHNA directly relevant to India's commitments under the Paris Agreement.

For Gaganyaan, France brings critical expertise in life-support systems, astronaut training environments, and human factors engineering, areas where CNES has deep competence from its involvement with the International Space Station.

The start-up component under Innovation 2026 opens pathways for Indian and French space start-ups to co-develop technologies — aligning with IN-SPACe (Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre), which was established in 2020 to open India's space sector to private players.

For exam purposes, the key static anchors are: TRISHNA's full form, its spectral domain, the agencies involved, Gaganyaan's mission parameters, and the role of IN-SPACe in the new space economy.