New Delhi: India is preparing to firm up its presence in space. After launching the Gaganyaan mission, the Indian Space Research Organisation plans to set up the country’s first space station by 2035 and put a human on the Moon by 2040.
These missions, “to be completed in the new ‘Amrit Kaal'” according to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, are important successors to Gaganyaan, which will send a human mission to space. ISRO will simultaneously conceptualise these projects while working on the human spaceflight capabilities of Gaganyaan.
ThePrint explains ISRO’s upcoming missions and what we know about their launch dates, modules, and collaboration opportunities.
Indian space station
The Bharatiya Antariksha Station (BAS) is the official name for the Indian orbital space station, a project unveiled in 2019 by the then ISRO chief K. Sivan. It was initially supposed to be completed by 2030, but the Covid pandemic delayed the timeline.
According to an article published in the Acceleron Aerospace Journal, the space station is expected to weigh 20 tonnes or 20,000 kg and will orbit 400 km above the Earth’s surface.
The first module of the space station will be propelled into orbit by 2028, ISRO chairman S. Somanath said at an event in December 2023. Modules are spacecraft sections, which, once assembled, form the space station. For example, the International Space Station (ISS), the largest single structure ever put in space, has over 40 modules at the moment.
Currently, two space stations are operational in the Earth’s orbit — the ISS, launched in 2000 as a collaboration between five space agencies in the US, Canada, Japan, Europe, and Russia, and the Tiangong Space Station, which China launched in 2021.
In 1971, the Soviet Union launched the first-ever space station, Salyut (salute), and followed that up by launching six more improved space stations, up to Salyut 7. Rakesh Sharma, India’s first astronaut to go to space in 1984, spent eight days on board Salyut 7 in a joint operation between ISRO and the Soviet Interkosmos space agency. Salyut 7 finally left orbit in 1991. Experience gained from the Salyut stations helped the Soviet Union launch the Mir Space Station in 1986. The Mir station remained in orbit till 2001, spending 15 years in space. Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, who spent 438 days on the Mir station, holds the record for the longest human space mission till now. A Salyut-derived module remains in orbit at the core of the Russian segment of the ISS.
India’s space station programme plans to allow astronauts to stay in orbit for 15-20 days. It is currently in the conceptualisation stage. In a Lok Sabha reply on 7 February, Minister of State of Science and Technology Jitendra Singh said ISRO was working on deciding the number of modules and docking ports the station would have.
The Indian space station has already received collaboration support from the United States. In November 2023, NASA administrator Bill Nelson announced during his visit to India that the agency was willing to collaborate with India on the space station. NASA has also committed to sending an Indian astronaut to the ISS by the end of 2024. The chosen astronaut will be the second Indian to go to space after Rakesh Sharma. Nelson has said ISRO, not NASA, will choose the astronaut.
About progress on the space station, ISRO spokesperson B.H.M. Darukesha said work is underway. “It has to happen step-by-step. Gaganyaan will set the stage for the space station. While we launch it, we’re also working on other research projects needed for the station. It’s all part of the larger plan for ‘Amrit Kaal’ space research,” he told ThePrint.
ISRO announced on 5 January 2023 that it had tested a fuel cell-based power system (FCPS) on PSLV Orbital Experimental Module 3 (POEM3). POEM3 launched the X-ray Polarimeter Satellite (XPoSat), a space observatory to study polarisation of cosmic X-rays, on 1 January. The FCPS is a hydrogen- and oxygen-based power generator with zero emissions. It only produces water and heat as byproducts, which, ISRO said, makes it “ideal for space missions where humans are involved”, including the Indian space station.
Also read: 10K-plus combined flying hours, IAF tested & ISRO selected — Meet 4 crew members of Gaganyaan
Moon mission
Modi and Somanath have said that ISRO plans to send a man to the Moon by 2040. While there have been few updates regarding the programme’s details, India did sign the Artemis Accords in 2023.
Established by NASA in 2020, the accords are an international agreement to further space exploration, moon landings specifically, through international cooperation. The NASA website states that through the Artemis mission, NASA plans to land the first woman, the first person of colour, and the first international partner astronaut on the Moon.
ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3 mission in 2023 will contribute to the human moon landing mission. Chandrayaan-3 was the first mission to land on the Moon’s South Pole, a previously unexplored region. In 2008, Chandrayaan-1 first found evidence of water molecules on the Moon. After that, NASA conducted a series of studies to assess the presence of water on the Moon. The Moon’s South Pole is said to have water ice or frozen water, which could be an important discovery that could help lead to future Moon missions, including human-led ones, to that region. NASA’s Artemis-3 programme, scheduled for 2026, already plans to send the first humans to the Moon’s South Pole.
There have been no announcements about collaborations or locations for India’s human Moon mission yet, but Darukesha said ISRO is open to commercial inputs and private sector investment.
Preliminary work for the human Moon mission has already begun, however. ISRO’s Human Space Flight Centre, inaugurated in 2019, is working on the fundamentals of human space flight missions that would help the Gaganyaan and Moon missions. Its mandate includes modifying launch vehicles (LVM) to human requirements, designed with crew escape systems (CES). The crew training programmes at the centre will also help in future missions, including the one to Moon.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
Also read: Making of 4 astronauts for Gaganyaan — rigorous training, medical & fitness tests, survival tasks