What is India’s plan to have its own space station and how will it benefit our space programme?

International Space Station in low Earth orbit is a joint programme of five space agencies namely NASA (United  States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (Japan), ESA (Europe) and CSA (Canada).

Indian Plans of Own Space Station

• Indian Space Research Organisation has announced that it would start working on its space station following its first manned mission to space Gaganyaan in 2022.
• The Indian Space station will be a small module and it will be used to conduct microgravity experiments.
• Indian Space Station is perceived as an extension of Gaganyaan project and it will orbit Earth at an altitude of around 400km.
• ISRO is working on space docking experiment (Spadex), a technology that is crucial for making the space station functional.

Benefits to Indian Space Programme

• Experiments on Microgravity will yield India useful insights on how the human body would act in the outer space. This will be useful to conduct future manned space missions.
• India is a leader of Space. The Space Station will further augment its place and help India garner moiré revenue through commercial activities and collaborate with other leaders to devise novel technologies of the future.
• India would be developing various technologies like Spadex to implement the programme. This will give impetus to innovation and research.

ISRO’s missions such as Chandrayaan, Mangalyaan, Space Station and Gaganyaan excite the youth, unite the nation and pave a technological seed for the future.