India has taken the initiative to establish its own space station, becoming the fourth country in the world to do so. As part of this goal, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched two satellites yesterday, Thursday.
The satellites, named “Target” and “Chaser,” each weigh 220 kilograms. They were launched yesterday at around 9 a.m. from the Sriharikota launch pad in Bengaluru, located in the southern state of India, using a rocket, an ISRO official told Reuters.
Jayant Murthy, a senior physicist specializing in space and an official of ISRO, told Reuters, “ISRO has decided to establish India’s own space station in space. This is crucial for sending astronauts to the Moon and collecting more detailed information about space in the near future.”
He added, “The Space Station project’s initial test is the Space Docking Experiment (SPADEX). As part of this experiment, ISRO launched two satellites yesterday. Although these satellites are separate, they will be controlled as a single object from Earth.”
The rocket carrying the satellites was tasked with placing them in Earth’s orbit. According to ISRO sources, one of the satellites contains soil and bean seeds to examine whether plants can germinate in the microgravity of space.
ISRO announced its decision to establish a space station on December 30. After two failed attempts to launch the satellites, ISRO finally succeeded on its third attempt yesterday.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his excitement in a tweet, stating, “A significant milestone in our much-aspired space missions has been achieved today.”
Notably, in April 2023, ISRO launched Chandrayaan-3, a spacecraft aimed at exploring the Moon. That spacecraft successfully landed on the lunar surface on August 23.
Later, on September 1 of the same year, ISRO launched Aditya-L1, a spacecraft aimed at studying the Sun’s orbit. That mission also achieved success.
It is worth mentioning that only three countries currently have their own space stations in orbit— the United States, Russia, and China. With this initiative, India has joined as the fourth.