After simulated zero-gravity training in Russia and theoretical studies in Bengaluru, the astronauts will soon lift off in a module atop a three-stage rocket.
It was the best-kept secret at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), the alma mater of some of India’s most renowned scientists, located in the country’s tech capital, Bengaluru.
For two years or more, Indian Air Force (IAF) test pilots Group Captain Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair, Group Captain Ajit Krishnan, Group Captain Angad Pratap, and Wing Commander Shubhanshu Shukla slipped into multiple laboratories, attended experiments, and listened attentively to lectures by young faculty members.
Others on campus did not know their identity or mission. They even kept a low profile when they socialized with faculty and families in the neighborhood where the institute is located.
On February 27, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the selection of the four to travel aboard the country’s first manned space mission, Gaganyaan.
They are scheduled to blast off sometime in 2024 or 2025. Modi, who introduced the astronauts at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Center in the southern Indian state of Kerala, lauded the remarkable day for the nation’s space sector.
They began training at Russia’s Gagarin Research & Test Cosmonaut Training Center in February 2020. This followed a 2019 agreement between India and Russia on selection, support, medical examination and space training of Indian astronauts.
They were trained for abnormal landings in various terrains, including forests, rivers, and seas. Their stay in Russia was an extended one, due to the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.
For the flight, which is likely to take place in 2025, three years behind the original 2022 scheduled date, the ISRO will reconfigure its three-stage medium-lift rocket – Launch Vehicle Mark-3 or LVM3 (known formerly as GSLV Mark-3) – to meet human rating requirements and label it as ‘Human Rated LVM3’, or HLVM3.
It will be similar to the rocket that launched the lunar missions Chandrayaan-2 and Chandrayaan-3, among others. The orbital module, comprising a crew module (with seats and controls) and a service module, will ride atop this reconfigured rocket.
Two pilots of the four introduced on Tuesday will set off on a two-day voyage, circling the Earth at about 400 km.
During the two-day outing, they will carry out five experiments the instruments for which were designed by the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (Thiruvananthapuram), IIT (Patna), the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research (TIFR), Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) in Bengaluru, and the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT), respectively.
As a precursor, the ISRO plans to launch a crew-less test flight, Gaganyaan-1, later this year. It will carry onboard ‘Vyommitra’ (space friend), a female robotic astronaut with motorized hands and arms that will help test how a human would fare aboard Gaganyaan without risking any lives. Another crew-less test flight will follow late in 2024.
To return to Kasturirangan’s recounting of Indo-Russian space cooperation, he quotes President Vladimir Putin:
Thank God, this field of activity is not being influenced by problems in politics. Therefore, I hope that everything will develop, since it is in the interests of everyone… This is a sphere that unites people. I hope it will continue to be this way.
RT. com / ABC Flash Point News 2024.
The Indians and the Russians are going to the moon, and the Jews and the British are bombing hospitals full of children. One of these things doesn’t belong among us.
Gagarin to Gaganyaan: Easy on the curry, comrade.