Deeper into space

Four decades after Rakesh Sharma’s milestone space odyssey, India is all set to celebrate another giant leap.

As preparations for the new mission take off, four astronauts — epitomising India’s advancement in space technology — are gearing up for the country’s first crewed Indian space mission, Gaganyaan.

Group Captain Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair, Group Captain Ajit Krishnan, Group Captain Angad Pratap, and Wing Commander Shubhanshu Shukla, chosen after rigorous testing and extensive training in the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)’s Bengaluru facility and Russia, will be the team that will orbit 400 km above Earth for a three-day mission.

According to ISRO, the key elements needed for the Gaganyaan mission include developing critical technologies like a safe launch vehicle for astronauts, a life support system to keep them comfortable in space, a way for the crew to escape in case of emergency, and plans for their training, recovery, and medical care.

Before this human mission, there would be three dry runs, two with payloads and one without any payload, as quoted in a report by Dr Aloke Kumar of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, whose laboratory is developing the biological payload for Gaganyaan. The earliest launch date for the mission is April 2024.

Kumar and his lab have developed bricks using bacteria and soil samples stimulating the soils of the Moon and Mars. The idea is that whenever humans have to make settlements on the Moon or Mars, they could use components from there — like Lunar or Martian soil — and bacteria and other components from Earth to make building blocks.

“Our biological payload for Gaganyaan is a bacteria in a box. Understanding the effect of space on biology is now key. Through this mission, we would understand the behaviour of this ‘good’ bacteria. Ideally, we would study it on the Moon or Mars, but we are for now planning for low-Earth orbit studies,” as quoted by Kumar, Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, IISc Bengaluru.

He says the space programme has now gone beyond conventional space engineering and is a truly multidisciplinary programme which, as human spaceflight and settlements are planned, involves everyone from space medicine to material sciences for building human habitats in space.

As part of the Gaganyaan mission, the ISRO has undertaken Research and Development (R&D) activities on new technology areas like life support systems, bioastronautics, crew training and human rating and certification, etc, which would “constitute important components for future sustained human space flight activities like rendezvous and docking, space station-building and interplanetary collaborative manned missions to Moon/Mars and near-earth asteroids,” according to ISRO.

On August 23, 2023, India became the first nation in the world to successfully perform a soft landing on the lunar south pole with Chandrayaan-3. Now, in another first, ISRO is gearing up for Gaganyaan.

ISRO has been conducting various tests in preparation for the upcoming mission, and in a significant one which took place in October last year, they successfully demonstrated the crew’s ability to safely evacuate the rocket in the event of a malfunction. Following this achievement, the space agency announced plans for a test flight in 2024, where a robot will be sent into space, paving the way for human astronauts to embark on their journey in 2025.

Gaganyaan or a vehicle to the sky (in Sanskrit), has been developed with an investment of USD 1 billion, according to the BBC.

Its success would mark India as the fourth nation to achieve human spaceflight capability, following Russia, the US and China.

The renowned Indian LVM3 rocket, previously used for the Chandrayaan-3 mission, will serve as the launch vehicle for the Gaganyaan mission. It comprises solid, liquid and cryogenic stages. All systems within the LVM3 launcher are being reconfigured specifically for the mission to meet human requirements, now designated as the Human Rated LVM3 (HLVM3). According to ISRO, HLVM3 will have the capability to launch the Orbital Module into the intended Low Earth Orbit of 400 km.

With golden wings on their shirts, these four officers are on a mission to create history, not to mention Prime Minister Narendra Modi and ISRO chief S Somanath’s active participation and constant encouragement in the endeavour.

The chosen four are Air Force pilots who have been selected after undergoing extensive physical and psychological evaluations. Having completed a rigorous 13-month training in Russia, they are now continuing their training in India.

Only three of these four pilots will eventually go to space as part of the mission.

According to ISRO, ensuring human safety is the top priority for the Gaganyaan mission. To achieve this goal, a range of new technologies, including engineering systems and human-centric systems, are being developed and implemented.

In Bengaluru, the Astronaut Training Facility offers classroom instruction, physical fitness routines, simulator exercises, and flight suit training for the pilots. Training modules encompass academic courses, Gaganyaan Flight Systems, familiarisation with microgravity through Parabolic Flights, aero-medical training, recovery and survival techniques, mastery of flight procedures, and training on Crew Training Simulators. Aero-medical training, regular flying practice, and yoga sessions are also integral components of the training programme.

ISRO has highlighted its primary objectives of a safe launch vehicle for the astronauts, a life support system to keep them comfortable in space, and a way for the crew to escape in case of emergency, but there remain potential challenges for the human space mission, which can include:

An increasing threat of space debris in low Earth orbits which can result in depressurisation of the cabin of the crew module in case of a collision with small debris.

Creating a replica of Earth-like conditions inside a small crew module poses a big challenge as creating an actual operating environment for humans for an outer space mission is next to impossible.

Due to the limitation of carrying much weight into space, a regenerative environment for food, water, oxygen, carbon dioxide and human waste has to be developed which can be a challenge.

To further firm up its presence in space, ISRO is planning to set up the country’s first space station by 2035 and put a human on the Moon by 2040.

These missions, “to be completed in the new Amrit Kaal” according to Prime Minister Modi, are important successors to Gaganyaan. ISRO will simultaneously conceptualise these projects while working on the human spaceflight capabilities of Gaganyaan.

The Bharatiya Antariksha Station (BAS) is the official name for the Indian orbital space station, a project unveiled in 2019 by the then ISRO chief K Sivan. It was initially supposed to be completed by 2030, but the Covid pandemic delayed the timeline.

According to an article in the ‘Acceleron Aerospace Journal’, the space station is expected to weigh 20 tonnes or 20,000 kg and will orbit 400 km above the Earth’s surface.

The first module of the space station will be propelled into orbit by 2028, ISRO chairman S Somanath said at an event in December 2023. Modules are spacecraft sections, which, once assembled, form the space station. For example, the International Space Station (ISS), the largest single structure ever put in space, has over 40 modules at the moment.

Currently, two space stations are operational in the Earth’s orbit — the ISS, launched in 2000 as a collaboration between five space agencies in the US, Canada, Japan, Europe, and Russia, and the Tiangong Space Station, which China launched in 2021.

In 1971, the Soviet Union launched the first-ever space station, Salyut (salute), and followed that up by launching six more improved space stations, up to Salyut 7.

Rakesh Sharma, India’s first astronaut to go to space in 1984, spent eight days on board Salyut 7 in a joint operation between ISRO and the Soviet Interkosmos space agency. Salyut 7 finally left orbit in 1991. Experience gained from the Salyut stations helped the Soviet Union launch the Mir Space Station in 1986. The Mir station remained in orbit till 2001, spending 15 years in space. Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, who spent 438 days on the Mir station, holds the record for the longest human space mission till now. A Salyut-derived module remains in orbit at the core of the Russian segment of the ISS.

India’s space station programme plans to allow astronauts to stay in orbit for 15-20 days. It is currently in the conceptualisation stage.

The Indian space station has already received collaboration support from the United States. In November 2023, NASA administrator Bill Nelson announced during his visit to India that the agency was willing to collaborate with India on the space station. NASA has also committed to sending an Indian astronaut to the ISS by the end of 2024. The chosen astronaut will be the second Indian to go to space after Rakesh Sharma. Nelson has said ISRO, not NASA, will choose the astronaut.

Modi and Somanath have said that ISRO plans to send a man to the Moon by 2040. While there have been few updates regarding the programme’s details, India has already signed the Artemis Accords in 2023.

Established by NASA in 2020, the accords are an international agreement to further space exploration, moon landings specifically, through international cooperation. The NASA website states that through the Artemis mission, NASA plans to land the first woman, the first person of colour, and the first international partner astronaut on the Moon.

Views expressed are personal