NEW DELHI, June 13 (Xinhua) -- India's Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Thursday said it was planning to launch its own space station.
"We are planning to have a space station for India, our own space station," ISRO Chairman K Sivan said while addressing a press conference in New Delhi.
The space station project will be an extension of the Gaganyaan (Sky Craft) mission. Gaganyaan is an Indian crewed orbital spacecraft intended to be the basis of the Indian Human Spaceflight program.
A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting crew members, designed to remain in space for an extended period of time and for other spacecraft to dock, the most commonly known being the International Space Station.
The government has already cleared a budget for the Gaganyaan mission. There would be two flights from Andhra Pradesh's Sriharikota without the crew before the maiden flight with crew in 2022.
At present, ISRO's focus is on India's second mission to the moon, Chandrayaan-2, that will take off on July 15.
Chandrayaan-2 is an advanced version of the previous Chandrayaan-1 mission, which was launched about 10 years ago.
