2024 Sets Ambitious Targets: Building Space Station, Starting Fast Breeder Reactor, and Boosting Research

New Delhi: India's scientific ambitions soared in 2024 with the government's unveiling of a space vision aiming to establish a space station by 2035 and land an Indian on the moon by 2047. Efforts to advance quantum technologies also received a significant boost this year.

The government further strengthened its commitment to research by operationalizing the National Research Foundation, which plans to allocate Rs 50,000 crore over the next five years to support research in underfunded colleges and state universities.

Indian scientists also made notable strides in space exploration and ocean research. They published papers based on observations from the Chandrayaan-3 mission, which successfully landed near the moon's south pole in 2023. Additionally, they captured photographs of hydro-thermal vents at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, revealing rich mineral resources.

An Indian astronaut will also fly to the International Space Station as part of the Axiom-4 mission as per an agreement between ISRO and NASA.

India's astronaut-designate Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla is undergoing training in the US for the mission expected between March and June next year.

In the new year, ISRO will also carry out Space Docking Experiment (SpaDEx), demonstrating docking of two orbiting spacecraft which is key for future missions such as Chandrayaan-4 and building of the Indian Space Station.

The first uncrewed mission of the Gaganyaan human spaceflight is also expected early next year. India aims to send its astronauts on a short space flight sometime in 2026.

The Anusandhan National Research Foundation was formally established in February to bridge the gap between research and funds in state universities and colleges that are home to 95 per cent of students.

The governing board of the Foundation, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has approved an initiative to accelerate research in key strategic and emerging areas under the Mission for Advancement in High Impact Areas (MAHA). Two priority areas for immediate support under the MAHA programme are electric vehicle technology and advanced materials.

It will also implement the Prime Minister's Early Career Research Grant (PM ECRG) program to assist young researchers to start their research career in an S&T institution.

India was also on the threshold of starting the second stage of its three-stage nuclear power programme with the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) granting approval to operationalise the 500 MWe Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) at Kalpakkam in Tamil Nadu.

"The PFBR is likely to achieve criticality in 2025," a senior official said, adding that the technology was complex and India would be the only country to operate such a type of atomic reactor.

The PFBR will use plutonium as a nuclear fuel and paves the way for the future use of thorium, a resource which is in abundance in India. Experts believe that mastering the technology to use thorium could secure India's energy future.

Fast breeder reactors "breed" more fissile material than the fuel they consume.

The Department of Atomic Energy also announced a significant discovery of new deposits in India's oldest Uranium Mine at Jaduguda. The discovery, made in and around the existing mine lease area, will increase the life of an otherwise depleting mine by more than 50 years.

The year also saw the unveiling of the Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar for excellence in the fields of science and technology on the lines of the Padma Awards. The new awards were instituted after scrapping a number of awards given by various science departments as part of the exercise to rationalize such honours.

In its inaugural year, the Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar was awarded to 33 distinguished scientists in four categories - Vigyan Ratna, Vigyan Shri, Vigyan Yuva, and Vigyan Team.

The government also unveiled the BioE3 (Biotechnology for Economy, Environment and Employment) Policy with the aim of transforming existing industrial and manufacturing processes across various sectors to make them more sustainable and environment-friendly, and less wasteful.

The policy seeks to harness the power of biotechnology, and develop new manufacturing methods that replicate, or mimic, processes found in natural biological systems.

After announcing the National Quantum Mission in 2023, four thematic hubs, each dealing with specific research areas, were established for Quantum Computing at IISc. Bengaluru, Quantum Communication at IIT Madras in association with C-DOT, New Delhi, Quantum Sensing & Metrology at IIT Bombay; and Quantum Materials & Devices at IIT Delhi.

The aim of the National Quantum Mission is to develop a quantum computer with a computation of 20-50 qubits in the next three years, 50-100 qubits in the next five years and 50-1000 qubits in the next 10 years.

Come January 1, about 1.8 crore students from state-funded higher education institutions, including universities and IITs, will have access to research papers published in top journals across the world.

Under the 'One Nation, One Subscription' initiative of the government more than 13,400 international journals covering science, technology, engineering, medicine, mathematics, management, social sciences and humanities would be made available to researchers.

As many as 451 state public universities, 4,864 colleges and 172 institutes of national importance will be among the 6,380 higher education and research institutes that will have access to top journals published by 30 publishers, including Elsevier, Springer Nature, and Wiley.

Earlier in December, ocean scientists from the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR) and National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) have captured the image of an active hydrothermal vent located 4,500 m below the surface of the Indian Ocean.

The team of scientists launched an automatic underwater vehicle (AUV) from research vessel Sagar Nidhi and captured historic photographs of hydrothermal vents.

The deposits from hydrothermal venting are generally rich in copper, zinc, gold, silver, platinum, iron, cobalt, nickel and other economically-beneficial minerals and metals.

(with agency inputs)