India would become the fourth country to launch a space station after the US, Russia and China
Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) chief K Sivan on June 13, 2019 said India is planning to launch its own space station.
The space station is an artificial satellite placed in orbit and is used as a long-term base for manned operations in space.
The proposed Indian space station would be similar to the International Space Station but smaller in size weighing about 20 tonnes and would take another 5 to 7 seven years to construct.
India would be the fourth country to launch a space station as the US and Russia have already launched their space stations and China is planning to launch its in 2020.
The International space station (ISS) is currently the only active space station in the earth’s orbit. ISS is a joint project between five participating space agencies —NASA (USA), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (Japan), ESA (Europe), and CSA (Canada).
According to K Sivan, the new planned Indian space station is reportedly to conduct microgravity experiments in space where astronauts can stay for 15-20 days. This project would be an extension of the Gaganyaan mission, which intends to put two or three Indian astronauts in space for a maximum of a week and is scheduled to be launched by August 2022.
The ISRO chief also confirmed that Chandrayaan 2 is planned to be launched on July 15 at around 3am and will contain three components — orbiter, lander and rover. The total composite module will weigh 3.8 tonnes, he said.
The Indian space station would be stationed at an altitude of 400 kilometres from Earth, said Anurag Kumar Sinha, head of Directorate of Human Space Programme.
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