India puts space station on priority eyeing geopolitical gains

livemint.com:

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Antariksha Station (BAS), India’s own space station currently at its final approval and engineering stages, is now a top priority for the Department of Space (DoS), according to two senior officials. With a launch date of 2028 and operational target of 2035 set by the government, the space station can give India global leverage as the International Space Station seems set to be decommissioned by the end of 2030.

“India’s space station will offer our allies in the West a key resource to rely on for global research collaborations," said one of the officials cited above on the condition of anonymity. “The BAS is being built with completely indigenous engineering, but India remains open to potential global collaborations as and where necessary.

Science is a field where development seldom happens in silos, and with the decommissioning of the ISS approaching, the BAS will emerge as the leading platform for global collaboration in space research and engineering." At present, the final engineering layout and cost plan for BAS has been presented for the cabinet nod, both the officials said. S Somanath, chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), had confirmed it during a press interaction last month.

The BAS is slated to be one of only two nation-operated space stations—with the other being China’s Tiangong Space Station, which came into operation in 2022 and serves only China. Previously, Russia’s Mir space station had served the erstwhile Soviet Union but was decommissioned in 2001.

With China’s diplomatic ties to the West currently strained, India’s government-operated space station may offer considerable geopolitical leverage. But private space station providers may impact India’s