BENGALURU: The Human Space Flight Centre (HSFC) under Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is looking at involving pilots and researchers in missions on board the country’s planned first space station, the Bharatiya Antariksh Station (BAS), scheduled to be ready by 2035. The future could also involve eligible students to go on the BAS to participate in missions in space.
DK Singh, Director, HSFC – established in 2019 to spearhead ISRO’s human space flight programme – on Friday said a road map will be prepared to expand the astronaut pool to include a wider variety of personnel to be involved in missions and experiments on the BAS in the future. He, however, refrained from revealing a timeline for it.
At present, India’s astronaut pool comprises only four ‘Gaganyaatris’ – Group Captains Shubhanshu Shukla, Prashanth Nair, Angad Pratap Singh and Ajit Krishnan – who have been selected to prepare for India’s first manned space flight, Gaganyaan, scheduled to be launched in the first quarter of 2027.
As per the Gaganyaan mission profile, three of the four will finally be chosen to be on the Gaganyaan mission, which will be taken to an orbit of 400km altitude for three days and safely return to Earth through a predetermined splashdown in the Indian waters.
Of the four, only Group Capt Shubhanshu Shukla has been into space on a live mission, and credited for being the first Indian to step into the International Space Station, which happened during the Axiom-4 mission by Axiom Space in partnership with SpaceX and NASA in June 2025.
ISS crew mates interested to onboard BAS: Shubhanshu
Shubhanshu Shukla had then said that many of his crewmates on the ISS had expressed interest in going on board the BAS when it would be up and ready to conduct experiments in space.
HSFC chief Singh said on the sidelines of the final day of the three-day international conference on spacecraft mission operations SMOPS-2026, that ISRO is partnering with private firms who have created environment labs and areas for analog tests measuring performance, functionality and behavioural parameters.
The tests will include simulations to build up stress resilience to cold, hypoxia, isolation and claustrophobia.
These analog tests will include pilots, researchers, scientists, students and civilians. Singh said the Mapping of Interoperable Traits and Response Assessment (MITRA), conducted from April 2 to April 9 in Leh, Ladakh, was also done in a private organisational set up, which was attended by the four Gaganyaatris, researchers and scientists, and in which emphasis was laid on their physiological as well as psychological well-being.
Singh said preparations for the first of the five modules for the 52-tonne BAS are already under way.
The first module is scheduled to be lifted off into space in 2028, and the full assembly of the BAS in space is expected to be completed by 2035.