A few days ago, Somanath, chairman of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), revealed the latest progress and plans of India’s manned space program at a conference jointly sponsored by Indian Surveying and Mapping Society (ISG) and Remote Sensing Society (ISRS), among which the development plan of India’s manned space station in the future attracted the most attention.
With the advancement of India’s "Gaganyaan" manned spacecraft program, India’s manned space station program will also be put on the agenda. It is planned to launch and deploy the first verification module of the space station around 2028 and build the Indian space station in 2035 — — Bharatiya Antariksha Station。 So, what is the level of the Indian space station?
The space station model announced by India.
India’s manned space flight: struggling to move forward
Manned space flight is an important symbol to measure a country’s comprehensive strength today. For India, which wants to become a "great country with great sound and color", manned space flight is obviously a plus item. In 1984, through international cooperation with the Soviet Union, the Indian Space Research Organization sent India’s first astronaut Sharma into space. He took the Soyuz T-11 spacecraft to the Salute 7 space station and made a space flight for 7 days, 21 hours and 40 minutes.
Borrowing a ship to the sky is just a pathfinding move to develop the ability of autonomous manned space flight. The ultimate goal is to send Indians into space by their own rockets and spacecraft. But India has lacked the necessary space capability for a long time, and even mature and reliable rockets did not exist before the 21st century — — It is the 21st century that the PSLV rocket independently developed by India has reached a mature and reliable state. Although the carrying capacity of the PSLV rocket is enough to launch a spacecraft of the same level as the American Mercury, the Indian Space Research Organization has long been in contact with the Soyuz spacecraft, and it is obvious that it will not "go backwards" to develop a spacecraft with a lower technical level like Mercury. The launch mass of Soyuz spacecraft is 6.8 tons, while the capacity of GSLV MK II rocket in low-earth orbit is 6 tons. It is rumored that India had planned to launch a manned spacecraft with two crew members with GSLV MK II rocket, but the performance of GSLV MK II rocket also made India a little disappointed — — Achieving maturity is something after 2010.
Although the manned space program has not been formally approved by the state, in order to promote the manned space program, the Indian Space Research Organization began to accumulate the technology and experience of manned space engineering in advance. In January, 2007, the Indian Space Research Organization launched a test module named Space Capsule Return Test (SRE). SRE-1 is just a simple return module. After being launched by PSLV rocket, it flew in low earth orbit for about a week, and then re-entered and landed on the sea surface of the Bay of Bengal. The Indian Space Research Organization has broken through the reentry technology of manned spacecraft through the SRE-1 return module, and the thermal protection tiles of the thermal protection system can be reused.
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) subsequently proposed to launch a manned spaceflight project, and planned to send Indians into space by 2015. However, this plan did not receive strong support from the Indian government, and the Indian government only approved a budget of 20 million US dollars for technical pre-research. ISRO can only continue to tackle technical problems first. In 2008, the Indian Space Research Organization decided to build an astronaut training center in Bangalore, and developed spacesuits inside and outside the cabin. It also prepared for the construction of a manned space mission control center and attempted to build a special manned space launch station at the Sri Harikota launch site. In 2012, India’s "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" was announced, and the manned space program has not yet been approved, which means that India’s manned space program was officially launched after 2017 at the earliest.
With the maturity of the GSLV MK II rocket and the successful development of the new generation GSLV MK III/LVM3 rocket, on December 18th, 2014, the Indian Space Research Organization carried out the suborbital test flight of LVM3 and launched the manned module for atmospheric re-entry experiment (CARE). The CARE manned module, weighing about 3.7 tons, is a full-scale test module of the manned spacecraft in the future. It was accelerated to a speed of 5.3 km/s and re-entered, and many key subsystems such as navigation, guidance and control and thermal protection were tested. Of course, such a large return capsule also means that the GSLV MK II rocket can only "look at the ship and sigh", and it is necessary to use the LVM3 rocket with greater capacity to launch a manned spacecraft. In addition, India has also carried out airdrop and water splash tests of manned return capsule, and the development of service capsule of spacecraft has also made progress. Indian Space Research Organization directly developed the service capsule of manned spacecraft on the basis of the fourth stage of PSLV rocket.
In 2017, the Indian Space Research Organization began to implement the manned space program, and successfully completed the launch pad escape test in 2018. On August 15, 2018, on the National Day of India, Indian Prime Minister Modi officially announced the manned space program called Gaganyaan. At that time, it was planned that the project budget would total 100 billion rupees (about 1.35 billion US dollars) in the next seven years. The Indian Space Research Organization also disclosed that the manned spacecraft is a typical two-cabin spacecraft with a total weight of about 7 tons. They plan to transport three members for a 5-7-day flight in 2021. The Indian Space Research Organization also sent astronauts to Russia for training, and established a ground station in Australia through international cooperation to support future manned flights.
However, with the development of the spacecraft, the plan has not changed quickly. The manned return module has become a large manned module with a weight of 5.3 tons, while the service module has a weight of 2.9 tons, and the total weight of the spacecraft has increased to 8.2 tons. The Gaganyaan spacecraft will be sent into a circular orbit with a height of 400 kilometers by a LVM3 rocket that has passed the manned certification. The Indian Space Research Organization obviously underestimated the engineering difficulty of manned spaceflight. Coupled with the impact of the epidemic, the first hot test of the manned version of the rocket Vikas was carried out in July 2021, the main parachute airdrop test was carried out in 2022, the parachute test was completed in August 2023, and the spacecraft escape test was carried out on October 21 of the same year. Like most space programs in India, the manned space program is also plagued by "procrastination". The first unmanned launch of Indian manned spacecraft has been postponed to 2024, and the first manned flight plan will be realized in 2025.
Manned space station: a vision full of variables
There is a saying in the aerospace field: shipbuilding is for building a station, and building a station is for application. Manned spacecraft is only the first step of manned spaceflight project. Manned spaceflight is to serve space applications after all, and space station is an essential infrastructure for large-scale space science and applications. Although India has not yet launched a manned spacecraft, it has already carried out the pre-research work of a manned space station.
In 2018, India’s manned spaceflight project was officially approved. In June 2019, Sivan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, revealed that India is preparing to develop and launch a space station in the next stage. It is said that the Indian Space Research Organization will launch a 20-ton single-cabin space station with the class of "Salute VII" around 2030, support short-term space stay of 15-20 days, and carry out space microgravity scientific experiments. Manned space engineering technology covers a wide range, among which rendezvous and docking is an indispensable key technology, and the Indian version of Salute VII space station should also break through the mastery of space rendezvous and docking. In 2019, Indian media reported that the Indian Space Research Organization had started research on space docking technology as early as 2017, and two small satellites would be launched in the future to carry out space docking experiment (SPADEX).
In 2021, at the Global Space Exploration Conference (GLEX 2021), Swan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, mentioned that India will develop a manned space station in the future to achieve long-term orbital residency. In his slide show, the core module of the space station is docked with two Gaganyaan spacecraft, and there are two suspected experimental modules. The core module also has a mechanical arm and an airlock module, and the performance index is greatly improved compared with the original "Salute" series of space stations. According to public information, the Gaganyaan spacecraft, which had planned to make its first flight at the end of 2021, was postponed to 2023, but in 2022, President Swan continued to say that this larger and more complex space station would be built around 2030.
In 2022, the Indian Space Research Organization showed a new space station model. This space station named the microgravity experimental manned orbital space station (HOME) consists of a service module, a residence module, a propulsion module and an inflatable module. It is exaggerated that there are not only three conventional modules, but also two inflatable modules on the HOME model, and four Gaganyaan spacecraft have been docked! However, considering that the Indian manned spacecraft has not yet been launched, the Indian Space Research Organization mainly focuses on the manned spacecraft, and the various manned space station configurations on display are of little reference value. In the future, with the implementation of India’s manned spaceflight project and the changes of India’s economic development and government support, the design scheme of the space station will be revised at any time. In an interview, Somanat, the newly appointed chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization in 2023, said that the Gaganyaan plan aims to achieve independent space flight capability. Once the manned space flight capability is broken, the space station plan will be implemented in the next 20 to 25 years. The space station has been identified as the main goal of the Indian Space Research Organization in the next decade. Judging from the available information, the Indian Space Station is no longer an imitation of Salute VII, but a typical multi-module space station.
The design of the Indian Space Station is also constantly changing. In November 2023, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, Somanat, presented a slide at the conference. It is planned to use Gaganyaan spacecraft to carry a small inflatable capsule in 2026-2028, test the deployment technology of the inflatable capsule in orbit, and then conduct the rendezvous and docking test in orbit. He also mentioned that the Indian Space Station includes three cabins, namely, living cabin, command and propulsion cabin and inflatable cabin. The total mass of the space station is about 25 tons, and the construction of the space station will be completed around 2035. The Indian manned space station has not been formally established. Whether it is the completion time in 2035, the total mass of 25 tons, or the design configuration of the three cabins, it is obviously uncertain. The Indian space station plan will continue to change.
According to the information released by the Indian Space Research Organization, Gaganyaan spacecraft will be launched by LVM3 rocket. In the existing scheme, the space station module will also be launched by LVM3 rocket, and the low-earth orbit capacity of LVM3 rocket is only about 10 tons, which may be the key to the total mass of the three-cabin space station being only 25 tons.
The first flight of LVM3 rocket in 2017 is not the end of the development of Indian launch vehicle. The Indian Space Research Organization is improving and upgrading the LVM3 rocket, and plans to increase the synchronous transfer orbit capacity of the rocket from 4 tons to 6-6.5 tons, and the corresponding near-earth orbit capacity can also reach about 15 tons. In addition, India is still developing a new generation of rocket NGLV, which will replace the existing launch vehicles such as PSLV, GSLV and LVM3. The NGLV rocket has a capacity of 20 tons in low-earth orbit and is scheduled to make its first flight around 2030.
Somanat, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, also said that NGLV rockets will be used to support future commercial launches, deep space exploration and manned space missions, and the current 25-ton space station may be an expedient measure. With the development of NGLV rockets, the Indian Space Research Organization is likely to develop 20-ton cabins and build a large permanent space station with three or more cabins. The Indian space station plan looks ambitious, but there are still many key technologies that need to be broken through, and it is likely that, like most Indian space programs, it will not be completed on time. Moreover, many Indian space programs are ambitious and divorced from India’s space industry and technical level, and the actual results are quite different from PPT.