Bharatiya Antariksh Station
Also called: BAS, Indian space station · Topic: Remote Sensing, GIS and GNSS · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
The Bharatiya Antariksh Station (BAS) is India's planned space station. A space station is a large spacecraft where astronauts can live and work for long periods. BAS will have five modules (separate sections joined together) in low-Earth orbit (LEO), a path a few hundred kilometres above the earth. No rocket can lift the whole station at once. So each module goes up on its own launch, and the modules are then joined in space by docking, which means bringing two spacecraft together and locking them. The station matters because it is the next step after India's crewed Gaganyaan flights.
Example
In September 2024 the Union Cabinet approved BAS-01, the first module, with a target of 2028. It added ₹11,170 crore to the Gaganyaan programme. To get ready, ISRO ran the SpaDeX mission in 2025, using two small spacecraft launched by PSLV. Its first docking was on 16 January 2025, and India became the fourth country to show it could dock spacecraft.
Don't confuse with
- Gaganyaan: India's programme to fly astronauts into space and bring them back. BAS is the station they will later live on, and it was approved as part of this programme.
- SpaDeX: a test mission with two small spacecraft that tried out docking. BAS needs much heavier modules docked with far more precision.