NEW DELHI, Aug 30: The Four Indian Air Force (IAF) pilots who had earlier completed their training with the Russian space agency ROSCOSMOS for India’s first manned mission to space, Gaganyaan, will return to Moscow next month for completing some specific tasks.
According to the Indian Ambassador to Russia DB Venkatesh Varma, the cosmonauts will return to Moscow for tailoring of their spacesuits that will be used during the Gaganyaan mission.
“Having completed their training, they returned home. We expect our astronauts to return to Russia for very specific tasks,” Varma said.
He added that “spacesuits are being stitched in Russia and they will be coming here to Moscow to undertake tailoring measurements.” The spacesuits are being developed by Zvezda, a Russian company. The astronauts had visited the facility in September, last year where their anthropometric parameters were measured to begin designing the customised spacesuits. The company will also be providing individual seats for the astronauts and custom-made couch liners.
While the names of the selected pilots are yet to be released, they will form the first three-member Indian crew to travel to space for a period of five to seven days.
“Indian cosmonauts have completed training on crew actions in the event of an abnormal descent module landing: in wooded and marshy areas in winter (completed in February 2020), on the water surface (completed in June 2020), in the steppe in summer (completed in July 2020),” official sources said.
Several other trainings including training in a centrifuge and in a hyperbaric chamber to prepare their organisms for sustaining spaceflight factors, such as G-force, hypoxia and pressure drops, would be held in the near future. The contract for the training of Indian astronauts between Glavkosmos and the Human Spaceflight Center of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was signed on June 27, 2019, and their training in Russia started on February 10.
The ISRO last week conducted the first hot test of the Gaganyaan service module propulsion system. The module is part of the Gaganyaan Orbital module and is located below the crew module. The 450-second-long hot test saw the system performance meet the test objectives.
Announced by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his Republic Day speech from the Red Fort in 2018, the Gaganyaan mission was initially scheduled for 2022, when India completes 75 years of independence. However, several delays have led to the deferment of the final crew mission. The initial timeline was set for 40 months after the date of announcement before which two uncrewed launches are to take place to demonstrate and test key technologies and capabilities.
However, the Covid-19 pandemic has delayed the uncrewed demonstration until next year.
(Manas Dasgupta)
