India recently announced its first Human Space Flight to take place in December 2021. This came immediately after the Cabinet approved the project and sanctioned $ 1.43 billion for it. While this announcement was in a way overdue as all preparations for it had been going on for quite sometime, it was still a very pleasant surprise. India will then a group of three countries who have already made such flights i.e. Russia, USA and China. While India’s Indian Space Research Organisation(ISRO) was set up in 1950s, it’s main mandate then was to use satellites for development purposes. However, ISRO has been exploring deep space with its Moon mission (Chandrayaan) and Mars mission(Mangalyaan) projects not only been successful but at a fraction of the cost of other countries. The Human Space Flight Mission has been named Gaganyaan and will be in three stages. The first stage will take place in December 2020 when an unmanned satellite will be launched for testing. In July 2021 another unmanned satellite will be launched for further confirmation/ testing and finally in December 2021 the Manned Mission will be launched. It has also been announced that this Human Space Flight will be for seven days duration and will carry three astronauts. Collaborative Agreements with Russian Space Agency Roscosmos and the French Space Agency CNES have already been tied up.
As a background it is pointed out that ISRO has been developing in-house most of the technologies for a manned flight and had also experimented with crew module atmospheric re- entry along with a ‘Pad Abort Test’ for sometime. As early as 2007 Dr Madhavan Nair, then Chief of ISRO was working towards a Human Space Flight Programme for which about USD 13.7 million had been allotted for pre-project activities. It was felt that this project will require about seven years. A Space Capsule Recovery Experiment was successfully done in January 2007 with 600 kg of payload using India’s PVSL launch pad and was recovered after 12 days. This was followed in 2018 by a Crew Module Re-entry experiment and Pad Abort Test in the same year.
India’s announcement of the Human Space Flight by Dr Kailasavadivoo Sivan, Chairman of ISRO, in January 2019 is therefore, not a day too early. India has already set up a Human Space Flight Centre near Bengaluru( erstwhile Bangalore) on a 140 acre site. This Centre will be the hub of all activities of the project. A team of 800 to 900 professionals will be deployed for this purposed.ISRO’s own Indian Space Science Technology Institute, which is a training Centre and produces about 100 Space Engineers a year will be the main source for recruitment.
The selection process of four Astronauts will start soon. India has been exploring deep Space for a long time but unmanned. India has already had one unmanned Moon missions: Chandrayaan 1 on 22nd October 2008 with a budget of about $56 million; Chandrayaan 2, the second Moon mission will take place in July 2019 and is expected to land on Moon in September 2019. This will consist of a Orbiter, a Lander and a Rover. On 5th November 2013 India sent out a Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) called Mangalyaan - it’s first interplanetary mission successfully.On 30th March 2019 India conducted an Anti Satellite Test which surprised the world. While it has been considered unfortunate due to some space debris getting added, India has explained that since it was done in Low Earth Orbit, most of the debris will enter earth’s atmosphere and will then disintegrate or burn out.
The Human Space Flight announcement by India falls into a pattern in which India’s Space technology is proving to be a top ranking one. With the success Human Space Flight India will be the fourth country in the world after USA, Russia and China to break into this club. Another aspect of India’s Space Programme is it’s frugalness. The first Moon mission, Chandrayaan-1 costed barely $56 million. The cost of Mars Orbiter Mission is slated to be about $74 million , about 11% of what it costed NASA for a similar mission and less than the cost of making the film ‘Gravity’. The budget amount for Human Space Flight is expected to be about $1.43 billion, a fraction of what it costs in the US and even other countries.
Dr Sanat Kaul is Chairman of International Foundation for Aviation, Aerospace and Drones. He is based in New Delhi, India and can be contacted at: iffaadindia@hotmail.com
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