Susmita Mohanty wears many hats: spaceship designer, serial entrepreneur, and space diplomat. She is co-founder and director-general of Spaceport SARABHAI (S2), India’s first space-focused think-tank, which she founded in 2021. Ms. Mohanty has spent more than 25 years in the international space sector working with the Americans, Europeans, Japanese, Russians, and Indians in various capacities, and is invested in India’s transformation into a developed space economy, gender parity in the space ecosystem, and space sustainability. During an interview in her home in Bengaluru, she spoke to The Hindu about her disappointment with women being excluded from the process of choosing astronauts for the Gaganyaan’s first crewed mission, India’s place among spacefaring nations, and what our fledgling space spart-ups need to thrive. Edited excerpts follow.

Having more women in space, especially in leadership roles, seems important to you. You recently wrote about how no woman was eligible to be considered for Gaganyaan’s debut flight since the candidates were required to be combat pilots of instructor grade, which ruled out women candidates.

My reaction to the all-male Gaganyaan astronaut selection was natural since I grew up in an India where women have always been part of the ISRO [Indian Space Research Organisation] workforce and have taken to science and engineering quite happily. ISRO has a good gender balance. If you talk to women scientists in ISRO, they will tell you they enjoy working there.  Besides, India has the highest number of women pilots in the world. Instead of celebrating that and letting them compete, we are just closing the gate on them. It doesn’t make sense. 

Due to advances in space technologies, flying to space is now accessible to ordinary citizens who haven’t been part of a military environment, which is why you have space tourists. Even if the [Gaganyaan] selection committee wanted to limit the first round to IAF pilots, they could easily have allowed the women IAF pilots to compete.

We have more than a hundred women non-combat (helicopter, transport) pilots because we started accepting women in the IAF [Indian Air Force] 30 years ago, in 1993. A retired IAF friend told me that we now have 19 women combat pilots since we started inducting them in 2016.  Not allowing our women pilots to compete was a huge missed opportunity for India.

I wish I didn’t have to write these articles in the first place. We have women who are qualified, capable, and raring to go. So why shut the gate on them? Stop being gatekeepers, let there be fair play.

Can you talk about your childhood in Ahmedabad, and how it shaped your imagination about space?

I was raised in what I call Sarabhai-and-Gandhi Ahmedabad, [which is] rather different from its contemporary avatar. My school principal was a Gandhian. Local industrial families were engaged in cultural philanthropy and institution building and promoted internationalism.

Among the many great institutions that nurtured my curiosity, creativity, and renaissance-upbringing were the School of Architecture (CEPT), Kanoria Arts Centre, National Institute of Design, Space Applications Centre, Physical Research Laboratory, Centre for Environment Education, Textile Research Association, and the Indian Institute of Management.

In my years since, I have lived in multiple cities in the U.S. and Europe. I have travelled the globe. Never have I come across a city that has so many institutes of excellence in such a small radius. Raised in a milieu of space pioneers and renowned contemporary architects, I was smitten with the idea of space architecture and design.

I was a hyper-motivated kid. While in high-school, armed with a bicycle, my dad’s portable German typewriter, and access to amazing libraries, I started working on design problems of living and working in microgravity. Back then there was no internet. So I would use Indian post to mail design ideas to NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and American universities. Some even responded from time to time. That kept me going.

Where does India stand today among spacefaring nations? What is the Indian space economy like compared to other countries, and the country’s potential in space research and exploration?

India has one of the oldest space programs in the world. We did our first sounding rocket launch in November 1963. Getting to a successful Moon landing has taken 60 years of hard work and perseverance with many milestones along the way. We launched our first satellite, Aryabhata, in 1975; had our first successful PSLV launch in 1993; and our first successful GSLV launch in 2001. We launched our first Moon mission in 2008 and Mars mission in 2013.

As an independent young nation, as we started to slowly recover from more than 200 years of colonial plundering, India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had the foresight to commit a substantial chunk of our meagre funds to science and technology early on. That foundation is fundamental to who and where we are today, as a nation. Any country with an advanced space programme such as ours takes a good half a century to get there. Space technology is complex. 

At international space forum, when I hear anyone refer to India as an ‘emerging space nation’, I flinch. I always insist on setting the record straight. The level of ignorance, even arrogance is often staggering. The old space narrative has a strong Western bias because it was largely shaped by the Cold War and Hollywood films.

India ranks among the top six space-faring countries in terms of space capabilities, the others being the U.S., Russia, China, Japan, and France. If you count Moon landings, then France can be dropped from the list. Soon India will become one of four countries to have independent human spaceflight capability once we launch humans into low-earth orbit.

Some of us are working on crafting a new 21st-century space narrative to reflect the [space] power shift to the eastern hemisphere, with China, India and Japan leading the way.

In 2007, when I decided to leave San Francisco and move back to India, I wrote to my mentor Arthur Clarke about my decision. He wrote back saying, “That is very strategic.” When I asked him why he thought so, he wrote back saying, “Everything began in the East and is going back there.” He cited the example of Chinese alchemists having invented gunpowder and said, “No gunpowder, no rockets.”

As someone passionate about preserving the environment, both our own and in outer space, can you talk about the impact of space debris?

I worry about the Moon because it is back in the cross-hair of human exploration. The Moon’s pristine environment will most surely be impacted adversely by human greed and the need to monetise everything. Space agencies and private companies will not stop at exploration and will likely resort to [mass] extraction of resources. Some countries such as the U.S. and Luxembourg have unilaterally passed laws that will allow their private companies to extract and own space resources. The prospect of space mining is real.

That’s not all. Humans are good at littering – there is proof on earth and in low-earth orbit.

We have made low-earth orbit a dangerous place because of tonnes of debris generated due to human activities. Debris objects can be as small as a chip of paint or as big as a defunct satellite or a discarded solar panel. Debris statistics on the ESA’s website indicate we have around 36,000 objects larger than 10 cm, 1 million objects between 1 cm and 10 cm, and 130 million objects between 1 mm and 1 cm. Orbiting debris moves at 28,000 km/hour, so it packs a punch.

Some space debris burns up as it re-enters the atmosphere, some fall into the ocean, and some onto land. Not all debris re-entries are controlled. For example, NASA had jettisoned a large pallet of old batteries weighing roughly 2.6 tonnes from the orbiting International Space Station [ISS], intending for them to burn up on re-entry. A fragment survived the journey and crashed into a Florida home in March this year.

There are Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee [IADC] guidelines for post-mission disposal of space hardware, but not everyone follows these procedures

How can space play a role in monitoring the effects of the climate crisis?

Earth observation (EO) satellites don’t just help us monitor global warming and ice melts, they also help tackle the impacts of climate change. For example, my former company Earth2Orbit’s EO analytics business arm had developed models that used satellite imagery and advances in machine-learning analytics for use cases that could make cities ‘climate smart’, for example monitor pollution, heat islands, urban sprawl, underground water.

Further, space technology spin-offs and satellite services have applications that can benefit the environment. Satellite-based systems can be leveraged to help reduce vehicle emissions, make wind turbines more efficient, and help solar cells produce more energy.

Most applications use a cocktail of satellites for telecom, remote sensing, meteorology, and navigation. Companies involved in downstream applications are innovating and creating new services and products to mitigate climate change and to help people, for example farmers and fisher folk, cope with climate change.

I’d like to talk about your journey as a space entrepreneur, and the three start-ups you’ve founded on three continents: MOONFRONT in San Francisco, LIQUIFER in Vienna, and EARTH2ORBIT (E2O) in India. Why did you choose to go the entrepreneurial route?

I began my professional space journey in 1997 with a brief stint at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre. After that, I worked for the ISS programne at Boeing in southern California for almost three years. This gave me an in-depth understanding of how the space industry works.

In 2000, I left Boeing, moved to San Francisco, and started a boutique space consulting firm called MOONFRONT. I decided to become an entrepreneur because when you work for a space agency or a large company, you cannot speak your mind freely. You have to toe the line, more or less. I am the type who likes to ask questions and challenge the status quo.

Four years after MOONFRONT, I co-founded a space architecture and design firm called LIQUIFER with a friend in Vienna. LIQUIFER Systems Group, as it is now called, not only designs space exploration, habitation, and transportation systems but also makes full-scale prototypes and tests them in analogue environments.

In 2008, I moved back to India and started my third venture, EARTH2OBIT (E2O). E2O played a pivotal role in opening up the U.S. launch market for the ISRO’s PSLV rocket. We also developed EO analytics products for crop forecasting and making cities climate-smart.

In 2021, I co-founded India’s first dedicated space think tank. We provide research-based policy guidance to the government, give India an international voice, and push for reforms that can help India become a developed space economy.

There has been a lot of conversation around the privatisation of space in India. We are privatising space launches and are in the process of allowing FDI in the manufacture of satellites. Your thoughts?

Privatising routine satellite and rocket assembly for mature technologies could have started two decades ago. I am told there was reluctance and pushback from the government space agency. The fear of losing control was palpable. The fact that it is finally happening is good news. Not just privatisation but even commercialisation of ISRO-tech has started to get traction.

Broadly speaking, there are three kinds of space companies in India currently: the NewSpace start-ups, legacy companies big and small that have been catering to ISRO’s needs for several decades, and telecom companies such as Jio Satcom and the Bharti Group-backed OneWeb.

The space reforms announced by the Indian government in 2020 mark the beginning of a new phase in India’s space journey. Operationalising those reforms will take time, but it is a move in the right direction. There is now a space regulator called IN-SPACe that is the one-stop interface for space companies seeking licenses, access to environmental test facilities, and other forms of cooperation to get their businesses rolling.

What is missing is funding on the scale you find in developed space economies such as the U.S. SpaceX, for example, would not exist without the billions of taxpayer funds it gets from NASA and the DoD [Department of Defense]. An American EO satellite company’s largest customer is usually the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Reconnaissance Office. Similarly, our government needs to become an ‘anchor customer’ for our companies for them to scale and thrive. The government cannot expect our companies to run on private capital.

In 2023, IN-SPACe’s ‘Decadal Vision and Strategy for the Development of the Indian Space Economy’ claimed it will propel India’s fledgling space industry from $8.2 billion currently to $44 billion by 2033. The reality is quite humbling. In 2023, cumulatively our [250 or so] space start-ups raised a meagre $134 million.

This February, the government announced FDI [foreign direct investment] liberalisation for the space sector. The FDI money will come in only when we have absolute regulatory clarity, a somewhat evolved space insurance landscape, and better protection of intellectual property. We also need national space legislation, which is yet to happen. So there is a long way to go. We are just getting started.

New Delhi:

The Gaganyaan Mission is at a critical stage this year with three important missions scheduled for this year, ISRO Chairman Dr S Somanath told NDTV.

“We are at a critical juncture with Gaganyaan this year. We have three important missions scheduled. First and foremost is the unmanned mission to orbit, spend time in orbit and return; the second is a test about equipment and algorithm; the third is a test to check the launch pad scenario,” he said.

The space agency also has a manned mission in the pipeline for which four astronaut-designates have been named. Of them, only one would ultimately fly to space, Dr Somanath said, adding that the others will also be trained.

Speaking about a launch date, Dr Somanath said, “The first test flight of the Gaganyaan is scheduled for the end of next year if all goes well. But everything depends on the progress we are going to make.”

The first Gaganyaan crewed flight may last one day in space with the astronaut doing 16 orbits of Earth, this would effectively test the environmental life support and control systems says Dr Somanath.

Prashanth Nair, Angad Prathap, Ajit Krishnan, and Shubhanshu Shukla are the four test pilots of the Indian Air Force who have been chosen for the Gaganyaan mission. The human space flight mission aims to launch a crew of up to three members into a Low Earth Orbit and bring them back after a missing lasting up to a week.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets Gaganyaan Mission astronauts-designate Prashanth Balakrishnan Nair, Ajit Krishnan, Angad Prathap and Shubanshu Shukla at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram on February 27, 2024. Photo: PMO via PTI

The story so far: On February 27, Prime Minister Narendra Modi publicised the final shortlist of candidates to be astronauts on board the maiden human spaceflight mission — called Gaganyaan — of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Assuming two important test flights this year and the next are successful, the first crewed flight of the mission is scheduled for 2025.

What is Gaganyaan?

Gaganyaan is the name of the ISRO mission to send Indian astronauts to low-earth orbit for a short duration, onboard an Indian launch vehicle. Technically, it is a demonstration mission: it will test various technologies required for human spaceflight, which remains the most complicated form of spaceflight, and demonstrate India’s familiarity with their production, qualification, and use. Last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi “directed” ISRO to have an indigenous space station by 2035 and land an Indian on the moon by 2040. While its most recent missions have reinforced ISRO’s reputation as a reliable launch provider also capable of flying sophisticated interplanetary missions, including Chandrayaan-3, the two new goals are technologically even more ambitious.

Also read | Burden of power: On India’s astronauts and the Indian space policy

Further, ISRO will attempt to execute them together with future moon missions. Chandrayaan-3 concluded the first phase of ISRO’s lunar exploration programme. The second phase begins with a joint mission with Japan to land a rover on the moon and another to collect a lunar soil sample and bring it back to earth. To these ends, the Indian government has divvied up spaceflight and services-related responsibilities that once rested solely with ISRO to two new offices. They are the New Space India Ltd. (NSIL; to commercialise space technologies) and the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (IN-SPACe; to authorise space activities in all sectors). ISRO also set up a coordinating body for Gaganyaan called the Human Space Flight Centre (HSFC).

What are the components of Gaganyaan?

Gaganyaan comprises the following components aside from the HSFC:

The Launch Vehicle Mark-3: The LVM-3 is the launch vehicle. Formerly called the GSLV Mk-III, it is a three-stage rocket. The first stage comprises of two solid-fuel boosters strapped to the rocket core. The second stage is powered by two liquid-fuelled and clustered Vikas 2 engines. The third stage has the CE-20 indigenous cryogenic engine with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen as fuel and oxidiser, respectively.

The orbital module: The 8.2-tonne orbital module is the object the LVM-3 rocket will launch and place in low-earth orbit. It consists of the crew module and the service module. The crew module can house up to three astronauts for a week. It includes parachutes to slow its descent to the ground once it descends from orbit; an environmental control and life-support system (ECLSS; to control the temperature, breathing environment, waste disposal, fire protection, etc.); and the crew escape system, which the astronauts can use to escape in case the rocket malfunctions during its ascent. The service module contains the propulsion system required to raise the orbital module’s altitude once it separates from the rocket and later to propel it back towards the earth.

The crew: Of the first four astronaut candidates, Prashant Nair, Ajit Krishnan, and Angad Pratap are group captains and Shubanshu Shukla is a wing commander, all in the Indian Air Force (IAF). When Gaganyaan was approved, the IAF prepared a longlist of candidates, who were trained at the IAF’s Institute of Aerospace Medicine. A subsequent shortlist of candidates were sent to Russia for advanced training. The crew module will include a gynoid (feminine robot) named ‘Vyommitra’ fit with sensors to track the effects of radiation and weightlessness, monitor capsule conditions, and sound alarms in the event of an impending emergency, aside from being able to perform some other tasks.

How was the mission put together?

ISRO had realised many of the underlying technologies by the time the Union Cabinet approved Gaganyaan in 2018. Post-approval, it proceeded to human-rate many of them, that is, ensure their reliability met the minimum thresholds for human spaceflight.

It had already conducted the ‘Space Capsule Recovery Experiment’ (SRE) in 2007 and the ‘Crew-module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment’ (CARE) in 2014. In 2007, a satellite placed in orbit earlier descended from an altitude of 635 km to splash into the Bay of Bengal. In 2014, a prototype of the module was launched onboard an LVM-3 rocket. It separated at an altitude of 126 km, descended until 80 km with retrograde thrusters, and finally with parachutes into the Bay of Bengal. Together, SRE and CARE tested the module’s separation mechanism, heat shield, braking system, parachutes, floatation devices (in the water), and retrieval procedures. ISRO conducted a similar test on October 21 last year — a crew module was launched on a small rocket before being ejected using an ‘emergency abort’ command, followed by testing its descent and retrieval.

In October 2023, ISRO chairman S. Somanath told The Hindu there was no domestic capability to manufacture the crew module and that it will have to be procured “from outside”. He also said ISRO’s hope to source technologies related to the ECLSS from abroad didn’t fructify, forcing the organisation’s engineers to develop them internally. Other major components, including the engines and the rocket stages, underwent similar tests of their own until ISRO could sign off on their reliability. This has happened through a series of tests, simulations, and quality-control exercises. For example, ISRO said on February 21 it had finished testing four CE-20 engines for 8,810 seconds in all, in conditions mimicking those during the flight.

What will Gaganyaan achieve?

The birth of NSIL and IN-SPACe followed wide-ranging reforms of the space sector. They were joined by the National Geospatial Policy 2022, the Indian Space Policy 2023, and the Telecommunications Act 2023. On February 21, in a fillip to India’s nascent space startups scene, the Cabinet also cleared 49% to 100% automatic foreign direct investment in space services and spaceflight. The Space Policy in particular provides an overview of what the Indian space programme will aim for in the coming decades as India joins a host of countries going to space, the moon, and beyond while conducting scientific, commercial, and exploratory missions. This new ‘space race’ extends geopolitical boundaries drawn on the earth into outer space. The result is a heavy premium on the human presence of different nationalities for longer durations in space and on the moon.

Against this backdrop, Gaganyaan will establish India’s self-sufficiency vis-à-vis sending humans to space, on timelines it can control, instead of relying on expensive contracts with foreign launch services — and in step with other efforts to represent India in the final frontier.

(From left) Astronauts-designate Shubanshu Shukla, Prashanth Balakrishnan Nair, Ajit Krishnan and Angad Angad Pratap.
| Photo Credit: PTI

All four Gaganyaan astronaut-designates, whose names were announced here on Tuesday, were commissioned into the fighter stream of IAF and are test pilots. They have experience flying a variety of aircraft including frontline fighters like the Su-30 MKIs and the MiGs.

Group Captain Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair, born in 1976 and the oldest in the team, hails from Thiruvazhiyad, near Nenmara, in Palakkad, Kerala; Group Captain Ajit Krishnan is from Chennai, Tamil Nadu; Group Captain Angad Pratap is from Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, while Wing Commander Shubhanshu Shukla, who is the youngest, is from Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.

Group Captain Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair

Born in Thiruvazhiyad on August 26, 1976, he is alumnus of the National Defence Academy and a recipient of the Sword of Honour at the Air Force Academy. He was commissioned into the fighter stream of the IAF on December 19, 1988. He is a Cat A flying instructor and a test pilot with approximately 3,000 hours of flying experience. He is also an alumnus of the United States Staff College. He has commanded a premier Su-30 fighter squadron.

Group Captain Ajit Krishnan

Born in Chennai on April 19, 1982, he is alumnus of NDA and a recipient of President’s Gold Medal and Sword of Honour at Air Force Academy. He was commissioned into the fighter stream on July 21, 2003. He is flying instructor and a test pilot with approximately 2900 hours of flying experience. He is also alumnus of Defence Services Staff College, Wellington.

Group Captain Angad Pratap:

Born in Prayagraj on July 17, 1982. He is alumnus of NDA and was commissioned into the fighter stream on December 18, 2004. He is a flying instructor and a test pilot with approximately 2,000 hours of flying experience.

Wing Commander Shubhanshu Shukla

Born in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh October 10, 1985. An NDA alumnus, he was commissioned into the IAF’s fighter stream on June 17, 2006. He is a fighter combat leader and a test pilot with around 2000 hours of flying experience.

All four pilots have experience flying a variety of aircraft including Su-30 MKI, MiG-21, Mig-29, Jaguar, Dornier, and the An-32.

Gaganyaan astronaut-designates Group Captain Prashanth Balakrishnan Nair, Group Captain Ajit Krishnan, Group Captain Angad Pratap, and Wing Commander Subhanshu Shukla received ‘astronaut wings’ from Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 27, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Video grab

India on Tuesday announced the names of the four astronaut-designates for the Gaganyaan human spaceflight mission, planned for launch in 2025.

The names of the Indian Air Force (IAF) pilots — Group Captain Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair, Group Captain Ajit Krishnan, Group Captain Angad Pratap and Wing Commander Shubhanshu Shukla — were revealed for the first time in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) in Thiruvananthapuram.

The final crew for the mission will be picked from among the four.

Shortlisted through a rigorous selection process, they have been undergoing training in various aspects of space flight, initially in Russia, and later at the Astronaut Training Facility established by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in Bengaluru.

The Prime Minister presented the four with ‘astronaut wings’ on the occasion.

According to ISRO, the Gaganyaan programme is designed to demonstrate indigenous capability to undertake human space flight mission to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The mission is expected to pave way for a “sustained Indian human space exploration programme” in the long run.

Preparations on

In the run-up to the crewed mission to LEO, ISRO is in the process of conducting various tests. These include the Integrated Air Drop tests, Test Vehicle Missions, pad Abort Tests. There will be unmanned flights before the actual flight.

ISRO has also announced plans to send astronauts to the moon by 2040.

During his visit, Mr. Modi reviewed the progress on the Gaganyaan Mission and dedicated three technical facilities developed at a cost of about ₹1,800 crore to the nation.

This includes a state-of-the-art Trisonic Wind Tunnel at the VSSC, integration facilities for the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, and the Semi-cryogenic Integrated Engine and Stage Test Facility (SIET) at the ISRO Propulsion Complex (IPRC) at Mahendragiri, Tamil Nadu.

The Trisonic Wind Tunnel produces a controlled uniform airflow over scale models of rockets and aircraft to assess their aerodynamic characteristics. It is designed to make ISRO self-reliant in the end-to-end design of upcoming launch vehicle projects. The PSLV Integration Facilities (PIF) at Sriharikota will give ISRO the capability to increase the number of PSLV missions in a year from 6 to 15. SIET will be used to test the SCE-2000 semi-cryogenic engine and stages which will increase the payload capability of the launch vehicles.

On his arrival, ISRO chairman S. Somanath took the Prime Minister through a display of equipment related to the Gaganyaan mission, including ‘Vyommitra,’ the humanoid robot developed by the space agency for the programme.

Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Minister of State for External Affairs V. Muraleedharan were present on the occasion.

A file photo of ISRO conducting the hot test of CE20 cryogenic engine for the LVM3, at its test facility in Mahendragiri, Odisha.
| Photo Credit: File photo

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has accomplished a major milestone in the human rating of its CE20 cryogenic engine, that powers the cryogenic stage of the human-rated LVM3 launch vehicle for Gaganyaan missions, with completion of the final round of ground qualification tests.

ISRO posted on X: “Mission Gaganyaan: ISRO’s CE20 cryogenic engine is now human-rated for Gaganyaan missions. Rigorous testing demonstrates the engine’s mettle. The CE20 engine identified for the first uncrewed flight LVM3 G1 also went through acceptance tests.”

Human-rating refers to rating a system that is capable of safely transporting humans.

The final test was carried out on February 13. It was the seventh in a series of vacuum ignition tests carried out at the High Altitude Test Facility at ISRO Propulsion Complex, Mahendragiri, to simulate flight conditions.

According to ISRO, the ground qualification tests for the human rating of the CE20 engine involved life demonstration tests, endurance tests, and performance assessment under nominal operating conditions as well as off-nominal conditions w.r.t thrust, mixture ratio, and propellant tank pressure. All the ground qualification tests of the CE20 engine for the Gaganyaan programme have been successfully completed.

In order to qualify the CE20 engine for human rating standards, four engines have undergone 39 hot firing tests under different operating conditions for a cumulative duration of 8,810 seconds against the minimum human rating qualification standard requirement of 6,350 seconds.

Update on first unmanned Gaganyaan (G1) mission

ISRO has also successfully completed the acceptance tests of the flight engine identified for the first unmanned Gaganyaan (G1) mission, tentatively scheduled for Q2 of 2024.

This engine will power the upper stage of the human-rated LVM3 vehicle and has a thrust capability of 19 to 22 tonnes with a specific impulse of 442.5 seconds.

The Gaganyaan project envisages demonstration of human spaceflight capability by launching crew of three members to an orbit of 400 km for a 3-day mission, and bring them back safely to earth, by landing in Indian sea waters.

A file photo of Chandrayaan-3 Project Director P. Veeramuthuvel.
| Photo Credit: Moorthy. G

India’s ambitious plans to have its own space station by 2035 and have an Indian astronaut on the moon by 2040 are progressing on track, P Veeramuthuvel, Project Director of ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3 mission, said on February 10.

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi and ISRO Chairman have already said that by 2040 we should have an Indian astronaut on the moon and also to have our space station by 2035. These are very ambitious plans that ISRO has taken up and we are working towards that,” he told PTI in Udhagamandalam .

On ISRO’s success in bringing back the Propulsion Module (PM) of the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft to Earth’s orbit, Mr. Veeramuthuvel said, “as far as Chandrayaan-3 is concerned, the lander and rover mission successfully completed one lunar day.”

“We successfully completed the hop on experiment wherein we used the same engine where we landed and again we operated the payload for one earth day,” he added.

The propulsion module which was supposed to orbit around the moon met all the mission objectives successfully. “We brought the propulsion module back to earth’s orbit because we got some propellent available in the propulsion module and demonstrated (our capability) by successfully bringing it from moon’s orbit to earth’s orbit,” he said.

ISRO successfully launched the Gaganyaan’s Flight Test Vehicle Abort Mission-1 (TV-D1) from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.
| Photo Credit: ANI

After the successful Test Vehicle-D1 (TV-D1) mission on October 21, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has lined up more test missions in the months ahead for the Gaganyaan programme.

Upcoming tests include the TV-D2 mission, the G-X unmanned orbital demonstration flight, an Integrated Air-Drop Test (IADT) and a Pad Abort Test, S. Unnikrishnan Nair, Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), told The Hindu.

A crew module with service module will be used in the G-X mission. This unmanned mission, to be launched aboard a human-rated LVM3, will have ‘Vyommitra’ – the ‘female’ robot astronaut designed and developed by the ISRO Inertial Systems Unit (IISU) – on board. In this mission, ISRO will put to test control systems, a “reduced version” of the life support system for the crew, thermal protection systems and the parachute systems.

Editorial | The ascent begins: On the progress of India’s human spaceflight mission

Meanwhile, the Test Vehicle (TV) development programme will continue parallelly. TV-D2 will be the second of four tests planned for demonstrating in-flight abort capability under different initial conditions with respect to the launch vehicle. Unlike TV-D1, TV-D2 will also have onboard a control system for re-orienting the attitude of the crew module once it separates.

The test vehicle will be the same, expendable version based on the L40 strap-on of the multi-purpose vehicle Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) used in TV-D1 mission. TV-D1 demonstrated the in-flight abort of the Crew Escape System (CES) at 1.2 Mach speed, which was followed by the separation of the crew module and its recovery from the sea.

At the same time, ISRO is also examining whether the TV-D1 crew module, recovered from the sea after a parachute-assisted splash-down, can be reused for future tests. The space agency is looking into this possibility, Dr. Unnikrishnan Nair said. The lead unit of ISRO for launch vehicles, VSSC was responsible for the structural design and manufacture of the unpressurised crew module used for the test.

As the module had come into contact with salt water, only a detailed inspection can tell whether it can be reused and in what capacity. ‘‘We are working out a plan to reuse it. We need to open and clean it and see what can be done. Efforts will be taken to divert it for the appropriate test programme under Gaganyaan,” he said.

Thiruvananthapuram:

Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman S Somanath on Tuesday expressed his wish for increased female representation in the nation’s space missions.

He said this desire echoes the sentiments of the nation, including that of the Prime Minister.

During an event at the Pournami Kavu temple here, where Somanath initiated children into the world of letters as part of the Vidyarambam ceremony on Vijayadasami, he shared his expectation of seeing more female astronauts in ISRO’s ambitious Gaganyaan mission.

Somanath clarified that as astronauts had already been selected and trained, the participation of women won’t be feasible in Gaganyaan’s inaugural mission, which aims to send humans to space and bring them back safely to Earth.

However, he expressed optimism of greater female involvement in future Gaganyaan missions.

“More women astronauts in space missions is part of my wish list, and I only echoed the voice of the nation, including that of the Prime Minister,” he told PTI.

On Sunday, the ISRO chairman had said the space agency prefers woman fighter test pilots or female scientists for its much-awaited human space flight programme-Gaganyaan- and it is possible to send them in future.

He had also said ISRO would send a female humanoid – a robot that resembles a human – on its unmanned Gaganyaan spacecraft next year.

The ambitious mission aims to send humans into space on a Low Earth Orbit of 400 km for three days and bring them safely back to Earth.

“No doubt about it…but we have to find out such possible (women) candidates in the future,” Somanath told PTI over phone in response to a query.

Acknowledging his spiritual inclination, the ISRO Chairman engaged in prayers on Vijayadasami day.

After completing his prayers at the temple on Tuesday, Somanath sat down for more than 30 minutes to help toddlers write their first letters to mark the beginning of their education.

Somanath justified his participation, saying the ceremony has got nothing to do with religion but is only considered as the initiation to education.

“Alphabets are worshipped in this temple. We can see the alphabets of the Malayalam language displayed as Gods and Goddesses here and worshipped. So they belong to us as knowledge,” Somanath said.

He said on the day of Vijayadasami, children are introduced to the domain of knowledge by gurus, who have already acquired something.

“So when they transfer that knowledge to the children, it is a blessing. So we transfer the blessing to them so that they can become great in the years to come,” the ISRO chief said.

He said it is a blessing of spirituality from the gurus to the children to help them learn and understand about the whole universe.

Former ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair and Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre Director Unnikrishnan were also present in Pournami Kavu to help the children with Vidyarambam.

Shashi Tharoor, MP, took part in the Vidyarambam ceremony at Sree Saraswathy Devi Temple in Poojappura.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

ISRO prefers woman fighter test pilots or female scientists for its Gaganyaan mission, the space agency chief S. Somanath said. File
| Photo Credit: K. Murali Kumar

ISRO prefers woman fighter test pilots or female scientists for its much-awaited human space flight programme Gaganyaan mission and it is possible to send them in the future, the space agency chief S. Somanath said on Sunday.

He also said ISRO would send a female humanoid – a robot that resembles a human – in its unmanned Gaganyaan spacecraft next year. The ambitious mission aims to send humans into space on a Low Earth Orbit of 400 km for three days and bring them safely back to the Earth.

“No doubt about it…but we have to find out such possible (women) candidates in the future,” Somanath told PTI over phone in response to a query.

Also read:Gaganyaan: The mission to send Indians to space is on track 

His statement came a day after the ISRO successfully launched its TV-D1 test vehicle ahead of the human space flight mission Gaganyaan.

He said the manned mission is expected by 2025 and that it will be a short duration mission.

“Right now, the initial candidates are to be from Air Force fighter test pilots…they are a bit different category. Right now, we are not having women fighter test pilots. So, once they come, that is one route,” the Chairman said.

The second option was when there would be more scientific activity, he said.

“Then, scientists will come as astronauts. So, at that time, I believe that more possibilities for women are there. Currently, possibilities are lesser because there are no women fighter test pilots,” Mr. Somanath explained.

To a question, he said the ISRO’s target is to put a fully operational space station by 2035.

ISRO had successfully launched TV-D1 test vehicle ahead of the human space flight mission Gaganyaan on Saturday.

After overcoming initial hiccups including delays, the space agency successfully launched the test vehicle with payloads related to the country’s ambitious Gaganyaan programme.

Scientists simulated an abort situation for the Crew Escape System to carry the Crew Module of the test vehicle out as they made a splash into the Bay of Bengal with planned precision.