India and its plan to build a space station orbiting the Moon

The construction of the lunar space station appears to be the third and final phase of India's lunar exploration campaign.

According to Space, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is planning to build a space station orbiting the Moon by 2040. This is part of an ambitious roadmap to establish a long-term presence of the billion-people nation beyond Earth's orbit.

Simulation of the Bharatiya Antariksh space station built by India (Photo: ISRO).

According to local media, the station will be called Bharatiya Antariksh , or BAS for short. Development of the station's first module, BAS 1, was given the green light by the Indian government in September.

Officials say the first module will be launched into low Earth orbit in 2028 and the entire station will be operational by 2035.

The "outpost" will support manned missions to the lunar surface and serve as a scientific research center, local media reported .

If all goes according to plan, India's lunar space station will be completed by the same time the country's astronauts land on the Moon, with a permanent base on the lunar surface built by 2050.

India, China and the US all have plans to build bases on the Moon (Illustration: NASA).

According to India Today, the construction of the lunar space station appears to be the third and final phase of India's lunar exploration campaign.

Accordingly, the first phase includes carrying out robotic landing missions to the Moon using self-developed technology, concretized by the Chandrayaan 4 mission.

Scheduled to launch in 2028, the mission aims to collect about 3 kg of rock and soil samples from an area near the Moon's south pole and return them to Earth.

The second phase aims for a manned landing on the Moon by 2040, followed by the construction of a lunar orbital station.

In addition to hosting astronauts, the station will serve as a scientific research center and a base for future space missions.

India's ambitions to conquer the Moon and beyond are strongly inspired by the historic Chandrayaan 3 mission, scheduled for August 2023.

On this mission, India became the fourth country to land a spacecraft on the Moon.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced that India will move towards new and ambitious goals, including a manned flight to the Moon by 2035, followed by a manned landing mission five years later.