BHARATIYA ANTARIKSH STATION (BAS)

• The Union cabinet has approved the building of the first unit of the Bharatiya Antariksh Station by extending the scope of Gaganyaan program

• Revised Gaganyaan Programme include: Development of first module of BAS and four missions demonstration for validation of various technologies for BAS by December, 2028
• Four missions under ongoing Gaganyaan Programme by 2026

Bharatiya Antariksh Station

• BAS is India’s planned space station for scientific research which will orbit around 400-450 km above the Earth’s surface

Targets: The first module (the Base Module) will be launched in 2028 and BAS will be operationalized by 2035.

Current Status: BAS is currently in conceptualization phase, under which overall architecture, number and types

of modules, docking ports etc. are being studied.

Other Space stations:

• • Inoperative
    • Salyut 1: It was the world’s first space station launched by the Soviet Union in April 1971.
    • Skylab: It was the USA’s first space station, launched by NASA in 1973.

• Operative

• • International Space Station (ISS): It is a large space station that was assembled in 1998 and operational since 2000.
  • It is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), ESA (Europe), JAXA (Japan), and CSA (Canada).
  • China: Tiangong 1 launched in 2011, Tiangong -2 launched in 2016 were test space labs and Tiangong space station was launched in 2021 (fully operational since late 2022).
• Upcoming
  • Gateway Space Station: NASA-led Gateway Program is an international collaboration to establish humanity’s first space station around the Moon as a vital component of the Artemis campaign.
  • Axiom Station: It is a commercial space station being developed by Axiom Space to operate in low-Earth orbit. It will be the first commercial space station in the world.

ORGAN-ON-CHIP (OOC) TECHNOLOGY

OoC is one of the human-relevant 3D culture models which, also known as ‘New Approach Methods’ (NAMs).

• 3D culture system allows researchers to recreate human organs and diseases in one dish.
  • IT holds great promise for many applications such as regenerative medicine, drug discovery, precision medicine, and cancer research, and gene expression studies.
• OOC is a micro-scale system used for mimicking the human body environment. They use microfluidics, along with cells, to imitate the physiological and mechanical conditions experienced in the body.
• They can control the movement and behaviour of materials and cells by using channels, chambers, membranes,etc. The goal for organ-on-a-chip is to develop human tissue models for disease modelling and drug testing.

Steps taken for development of Precision Medicine and Organ on chip technology:

At Indian Level:

• BioE3 policy: To drive innovation in the biotechnology sector, Key focus area of the policy is precision therapeutics.
• Amendment of New Drugs and Clinical Trials Rules 2019: To permit the use of human organs-on-chips and other. NAMs prior to and in conjunction with animal testing when evaluating new drugs.
• Genome India Project (GIP): Government-led initiative to create a genetic map of India. GIP aims to develop personalized medicine based on patients’ genomes to anticipate and modulate diseases.
• Phenome India Project: By CSIR for generating a comprehensive phenome database tailored to the Indian population for advancing precision medicine.
• Indian Cancer Genome Atlas (ICGA): ICCA’s mission is to create a database of cancer data specific to India to help researchers and clinicians develop personalized cancer treatments.