India prioritizes space station for geopolitical gains

New Delhi: Bharatiya Antariksha Station (BAS), India’s space station currently in its final stages of approval and engineering, is now a top priority for the Department of Space (DoS), according to two senior officials.

With a launch date of 2028 and an operational target of 2035 set by the government, the space station could give India a global advantage as the International Space Station appears set to be decommissioned by the late 2030s.

“India’s space station will offer our allies in the West a key resource to rely on for global research collaboration,” said one of the officials cited above on condition of anonymity. “BAS is being built with completely indigenous engineering, but India remains open to potential global collaborations when required. Science is a field where development rarely happens in silos, and with the decommissioning of the ISS approaching, BAS will emerge as the leading platform for global collaboration in space research and engineering.”

Engineering design is presented

At present, the final engineering design and cost plan for BAS have been submitted for Cabinet approval, both officials said. S Somanath, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), had confirmed this during a press interaction last month.

BAS is planned to be one of only two space stations operated by a country, along with China’s Tiangong space station, which became operational in 2022 and serves only that country. Previously, Russia’s Mir space station served the former Soviet Union, but was decommissioned in 2001.

Private challenge

With China’s diplomatic relations with the West currently strained, India’s government-operated space station may offer considerable geopolitical leverage, but private space station providers may influence India’s projections about what its space station can achieve.

“India has not yet completed the engineering of the space station and at this point its potential depends on the Centre’s plans,” said Narayan Prasad Nagendra, chief operating officer of Dutch space supply chain company Satsearch. “Only when the space station is operational will we be able to see how useful it would be; without the ISS in orbit, the BAS could have any effect.”

However, Nagendra said that may not be such a simple equation, citing the rise of privately operated space stations as a key factor. “It is not as if the US will immediately start depending on India’s space station – today, several private companies are in the process of deploying their own space stations in orbit, which will sufficiently serve the scientific space research initiatives of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Other nations are also pursuing similar goals.”

For example, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa) announced last month that it had contracted a private agency to create a module design for the space station. However, it is expected to be compatible with a US-owned space station and be able to dock with an orbiting station and become a subdivision of it.

Another challenge is existing space collaborations with India: No Indian astronaut has ever been part of a research group on the International Space Station, which is largely NASA-centric, said an industry executive, who asked not to be named because of a commercial contract with ISRO. “This may not work in India’s favour as ISRO has refused to participate in ISS programmes and conducted its own research.”

Isro did not immediately respond to a request for comment by press time.

To be sure, the US company Axiom Space last month signed a commercial contract to fly an Indian astronaut to the ISS for the first time. The mission is expected to take off in October and spend 14 days docked in space. However, Nagendra said this mission will have little geopolitical or scientific significance, “as it will allow anyone with two years of training to go to the ISS, carrying basic experimental payloads and nothing too geopolitically significant.”

Space Station Economics

However, others believe that collaboration in space research and development (R&D) will add geopolitical significance to the BAS. Chaitanya Giri, associate professor of space studies at Flame University in Pune and a consultant to space companies, said a key factor will be the economy that the BAS will build.

“While India’s space station will be smaller in scale and private commercial space stations are being built, India’s own space station will create a supplier economy for launch supplies, clothing and other items, which can create opportunities for both local and international space companies,” Giri said. “Also, the station will be key for geopolitical collaborative research, where a state-backed space station will be more important than commercial ones.”