'We can build space station, send humans to Moon': Somanath shares ISRO's plans till 2047

ISRO Chairman S Somanath on Thursday said that after the success of Chandrayan-3, there was a huge demand to know about what was next for the space agency in the coming 25 years. He said the space agency has a roadmap for what it has planned till 2047. "We can build a space station, we can send human beings to the moon, and we can create Moon-based economic activity in space," he said while addressing the TechFest at IIT Bombay.

On August 23, India scripted history by becoming the fourth country to touch down on the Moon and the first to land on the southern polar region.

Months after Chandryaan-3's success, Somanath earlier this month said the space agency will send an Indian astronaut to the Moon as early as 2040. "Looking ahead, ISRO aims to take the next step in space exploration with the Gaganyaan programme, planning to launch a crew of 2 to 3 Indian astronauts into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) for up to three days before safely returning them to a predefined site in Indian waters," he said in an article for Manorama Yearbook 2024.

The ISRO is also working on the Gaganyaan project, under which the space agency will send three humans to an orbit of 400 km and bring them safely back to Earth by landing in Indian sea waters. The mission is expected to be launched in 2025.

Earlier this month, Somanath said the space agency had decided to indigenously develop the environmental control and life support system (ECLSS) for the human space flight mission after it failed to get it from other countries.

"We have no experience in developing an environmental control life support system. We were only designing rockets and satellites. We thought that this knowledge would come from other nations, but unfortunately, after so much discussion, nobody is willing to give it to us," Somanath said, adding that ISRO has now decided to indigenously develop the ECLSS. "We are going to develop it in India using the knowledge we have and using the industries that we have."