Inside Ladakh’s ‘Moon & Mars’ pod: India’s HOPE mission explained

A dome-shaped habitat in Ladakh’s Tso Kar Valley could shape the future of human space travel.

Transcript

00:00This dome-shaped pod in Ladakh might help us live on the Moon and Mars.

00:09Protoplanet, in collaboration with ISRO, launched the Himalayan Outpost for Planetary Exploration Mission,

00:13which ran from August 1 to 10, 2025 in the Sokar Valley.

00:20During the HOPE mission, just like real space expeditions,

00:23astronauts stepped out to collect rock samples and performed extravehicular activities.

00:27The EVs are tasks conducted outside a spacecraft by astronauts, commonly called spacewalks.

00:40Sokar Valley in Ladakh, at 4530 meters,

00:43closely mimics Mars with its high UV radiation, low pressure and extreme environment.

00:47The outcome is to understand the effect of this environment,

00:51which is a low oxygen, low atmospheric pressure environment, on their bodies.

00:57The HOPE habitat has two modules, Phobos and Deimos,

01:00with insulated polymer walls and reinforced fiberglass windows.

01:04With the power, we have set up our solar panels and batteries.

01:07Waste management is another thing that we took very seriously.

01:10So all the plumbing, the wastewater, sewage systems,

01:14pipes come in and they lead into the biodigester, the green box there.

01:18Balash Kumar Basu, Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Space Technology said,

01:22lab tests on blood, urine and breath samples taken before, during and after the mission

01:27will show how stress and environmental strain affect human genes.

01:30There will be a series of papers and research

01:32that will be conducted by the Human Space Flight Centre of the Indian Space Research Organisation

01:36that will tell us the changes that the two analog astronauts have gone through.

01:39The HOPE mission could be India's first step toward exploring new missions,

01:42helping Israel refine protocols and training

01:44ahead of the 2027 Gaganyan Astronaut Mission.