India to have its own space station Gaganyaan by 2022: ISRO

New Delhi: India is planning to launch its own space station Gaganyaan to further explore the solar system, said Chief of India Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Dr Kailasavadivoo Sivan in a press conference held on Thursday.

“We want to have a separate space station. We will launch a small module for microgravity experiments… that is our ambition,” he said, addressing the media. A detailed report would be submitted to the government after the Gaganyaan mission.

Gaganyaan aims to place two to three humans in low Earth orbit of 300-400 km for up to a week’s time and will most likely be used to conduct microgravity experiments. The exact details will only be known once the project is completely functional.

Simply put, a space station is a manned satellite in a low earth orbit.

ISRO will start working on its space station mission termed Gaganyaan (space vehicle) in 2022, after the completion of India’s first human space mission, Chandrayaan 2 (moon vehicle).

The space station, which is estimated to weigh around 20 tonnes, would be an extension of the Gaganyaan mission.

ISRO is of view that the decision to have a space station will have a positive effect on other connected projects. The plan to have a space station will result in accelerated development of reusable rockets, in-orbit docking systems, manned mission and others.

India’s second lunar mission Chandrayaan-2 is aimed at further studying the extent of water molecules on the moon surface, evidence of which was discovered by Chandrayaan 1. 

After Chandrayaan 2, ISRO has set its sights on two interplanetary missions. Mission Aditya-L1 is scheduled for next year to study the Sun’s corona, which effects climate on earth, and another mission to study Venus in 2-3 years.

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