India plans to have own space station by 2030

India on Thursday announced that it plans to have its own space station by 2030.

Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) chairman K Sivan said the space station would be an extension of the human space flight programme Gaganyaan, which is tentatively scheduled for launch in December 2021.

“We are planning to have a separate space station… it will be a very small module to carry out microgravity experiments,” Sivan told reporters here outlining the future plans for Isro.

Unlike the International Space Station (ISS) that weighs over 400 tonnes, the Indian outpost in space would be a modest 20-tonne unit capable of docking two Gaganyaan modules and a small facility to carry out experiments. “We do not have big plans like space tourism and all. It will be totally Indian and manned by Indians,” Sivan said.

The Indian Space Station will be placed in a low earth orbit of about 400 km and will be able to support crew members for about a fortnight. It is also seen as a precursor to India’s ambitious plans to colonise outer space.

For the present, Isro scientists are completely focused on the Chandrayaan-2 project that is set to be launched on July 15 and entails landing a rover on the lunar surface sometime in September.

After Chandrayaan-2, Isro’s energies will be focused on the first human space flight — Gaganyaan that aims at putting a crew of three astronauts in space for a week.

The selection of the astronauts — test pilots from the Indian Air Force — will be done in the next six months and they would undergo extensive training for the space flight in India as well as in a foreign country.

Before the Gaganyaan launch in December 2021, the Isro plans to undertake two unmanned missions — first in December 2020 and the next, six months later before sending humans in space.

The Isro also plans to launch the much-delayed Aditya Mission — a space craft to study the sun — in 2020 and an orbiter probe to Venus in 2023. The mission to Venus will have 16 Indian and seven international payloads, Sivan said.

Sivan added that in the future, the Isro was also keen to join the international community for a manned mission to moon and a possible landing on an asteroid.