India To Have Its Own Space Station By 2030; Space Docking Trial By Next Year

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman K Sevan in an interview conversation with the Times of India made some huge promising revelations regarding future endeavors that ISRO is planning to execute.

A major breaking news coming right from the ISRO space agency is that India is to have it’s very first space dock trial in 2020. A major leap for Indian scientists in space to compete with other well established nations like Russia, the US and China in the concerned area of space dock stations.

While giving a peek into the program, K Sevan remarked “We are going to conduct a docking experiment next year in which two experimental modules will be sent to space (on board a PSLV rocket) and the two will be made to dock with each other in space”.

Space Docking

Free-flying Progress spacecraft in process of docking to the International Space Station
[Image – NASA]

Space docking is a major challenge for the Indian scientists and they are well prepared to take it head on. The complex docking process is literally rocket science at it’s best. Creating an Indian space dock is the crucial foundation that needs to be laid down if India wants an established space station and wants to send more astronauts into space. The technological advancements the ISRO scientists need to work on are sophisticated and elaborate to begin with.

Docking requires two satellites to be bound or latched together to come as one and create a greater platform. This intense and tedious process requires total surveillance from the earth station with the help of supersonic advanced cameras.

It is with due to the benefits of this docking technology that International Space Station (ISS) which is a joint space project of 5 agencies namely, Nasa (US), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (Japan), ESA (Europe), CSA (Canada), came into existence in 1998 and 2011.

To further throw some light, docking is done to either to dispatch humans to space via shuttles or to congregate huge satellites in space.

Alongside this laborious plan of action, the very dedicated ISRO chief K Sevan also commented on the upcoming Gaganyaan mission, scheduled for launch in December 2021. This human space flight programme will be sending 3 humans for approximately 5 to 7 days to carry out tests on micro gravity and the like. Also he proclaimed initially, “The Indian space station will have a mass of 20 tonnes and be used for scientific studies, including micro gravity tests. It will has provision for a few people to live for 15-20 days.”

Currently the International Space Station (ISS) is the only entirely operational and working space station located in the Earth’s orbit.