India is planning to launch its own space station, Indian Space Research Organisation Chairperson K Sivan on Thursday told reporters in New Delhi on Thursday.

Sivan said the project would be an extension of the Gaganyaan mission, India’s first manned mission to space. “We have to sustain the Gaganyaan programme after the launch of [the] human space mission,” he said. “In this context, India is planning to have its own space station.”

On Wednesday, Sivan had announced the launch of Chandrayaan 2, India’s mission to the moon, after midnight on July 15. After the launch, the satellite will take several weeks before it heads for a much-anticipated soft-landing on the south pole of the moon – a region that has not been visited by any spacecraft. ISRO expects Chandrayaan 2 to attempt landing on the lunar surface on September 6 or September 7.

In January, Sivan had confirmed that preparations for the ambitious indigenous Gaganyaan programme had started. The target to send a manned mission to space is December 2021, ahead of the 2022 deadline announced initially.