Indian Space and Research Organization (ISRO) has announced its ambitious plan to put up a space station in the next decade.
Details:
- The Indian space station will be much smaller (mass of 20 tonnes) than the International Space Station and will be used for carrying out microgravity experiments (not for space tourism).
- Preliminary plan for the space station is to accommodate astronauts for up to 20 days in space, and the project will be an extension of the Gaganyaan mission.
- It will orbit Earth at an altitude of around 400km.
- ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) is working on space docking experiment (Spadex), a technology that is crucial for making the space station functional.
- space docking is a technology that allows transferring humans from one spacecraft to another.
- 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).
