ISRO Says Docking Technology Key To Future Lunar And Human Space Missions

Docking technology will be a key capability for India’s future lunar exploration and human space missions, including returning samples from the Moon and assembling the proposed Bharatiya Antariksh Station, a senior ISRO official said on Tuesday.

M R Raghavendra, Director of the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC), Bengaluru, made the remarks at a National Space Day programme organised by ISTRAC in collaboration with City Montessori School (CMS) in Lucknow.

Raghavendra explained that docking involves two spacecraft meeting and securely connecting in space, allowing astronauts, equipment or materials to be transferred between them. He said ISRO’s successful Space Docking Experiment has given the organisation valuable experience that can be applied to more complex missions.

He cited a possible future lunar sample-return mission as an example. A lander could collect samples from the Moon and travel to an orbiter positioned around the lunar surface. The lander would then dock with the orbiter and transfer the samples, which could subsequently be transported back to Earth.

“Now we want to bring some samples from the Moon, and to do that, we need this docking,” Raghavendra said.

Docking will also be essential for the proposed Bharatiya Antariksh Station (BAS), India’s planned space station. Raghavendra said BAS is expected to follow a five-module approach, with docking technology allowing the individual modules to be connected in orbit. He described docking as an important capability for both human and other advanced space missions.

Raghavendra also highlighted the planning and technological effort behind Chandrayaan-3, which achieved a historic soft landing on the Moon on August 23, 2023. India became the fourth country to successfully land on the Moon and the first to reach the lunar southern polar region. The Vikram lander deployed the Pragyan rover, while the landing site was named Shiv Shakti Point.

August 23 was declared National Space Day, and India will celebrate its third National Space Day on August 23, 2026, with the theme ‘Towards Viksit Bharat: Innovating, Collaborating, and Aspiring to Global Space Leadership’.

The Lucknow event was held at CMS’s Gomtinagar-1 campus, the alma mater of astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla, the first Indian to visit the International Space Station.