Docking technology key to future lunar, human space missions: Isro official

Docking technology will be crucial for future lunar exploration and human space missions, including bringing lunar samples back to Earth and assembling India's proposed space station, said ISRO

Docking technology will be crucial for future lunar exploration and human space missions, including bringing lunar samples back to Earth and assembling India's proposed space station, a senior ISRO official said here on Tuesday.

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

The school is the alma mater of astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla, the first Indian to visit the International Space Station.

"The docking experiment is a very interesting experiment which we have conducted, as it can be very useful in future," Raghavendra said, referring to ISRO's successful space docking experiment.

"Now we have landed on the Moon. Now we want to bring some samples from the Moon, and to do that, we need this docking. There will be an orbiter which goes around the Moon, and there will be a lander which picks up the sample, comes to the orbiter, docks and then the sample is returned to Earth," he said.

"So ISRO has gained experience in docking as well," he added.

Raghavendra said docking would also be essential for the proposed Bharatiya Antariksh Station (BAS), India's planned space station.

"You must have all heard of the ISS (International Space Station). Now we have BAS (Bharatiya Antariksh Station) also coming up, which will have a five-module approach and each of these modules will require docking. So docking is a way forward for human missions and even for primary missions," he said.

He also stressed the importance of planning and execution behind the success of the Chandrayaan-3 mission, under which India achieved a soft landing on the Moon.

"We were the fourth country to land on the Moon. Landing on the Moon was not just an event," he said, highlighting the technological and organisational effort involved in the mission.

Speaking to reporters separately, Raghavendra described National Space Day as an important occasion for India and its scientific community.

"This is a very important day for our nation, especially the scientific community, because on this day, we achieved a very technologically challenging mission by landing our ISRO lander on the southern side of the Moon on August 23, 2023," he said.

"This is not only a demonstration of technological prowess but also a huge inspiration to all young minds of our country," he added.

Chandrayaan-3 achieved a historic milestone in 2023, when its Vikram lander made a safe and soft landing on the lunar surface, making India the fourth country to successfully land on the Moon and the first to reach the lunar southern polar region. The Pragyan rover was subsequently deployed on the surface.

The landing site was named Shiv Shakti Point, and August 23 was declared National Space Day.

India will celebrate its third National Space Day on August 23 this year with the theme 'Towards Viksit Bharat: Innovating, Collaborating, and Aspiring to Global Space Leadership'.

As part of the 2026 celebrations, ISTRAC organised the one-day programme in collaboration with CMS at its Gomtinagar-1 campus in Lucknow on Tuesday.