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Modi Announces Names Of Four-Member Gaganyaan Team

By LokMarg 27th February 2024

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Tuesday the names of the four astronauts who will be part of India’s first human space flight program, Gaganyaan, slated to be launched in 2024-25.

The four chosen Indian Air Force pilots are Group Captain Prashanth Nair, Group Captain Ajit Krishnan, Group Captain Angad Pratap, and Wing Commander Shubhanshu Shukla. The four astronauts were trained at Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Russia.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is on a visit to Kerala, reviewed the progress of Gaganyaan mission and bestowed ‘astronaut wings’ to the astronaut-designates at Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre. The Gaganyaan mission is India’s first human space flight program for which extensive preparations are underway at various ISRO centres.

“India’s success in the space sector is sowing the seeds of scientific temperament in the country’s young generation,” PM Modi said in his address at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre.

“As India is set to become the top-3 economy of the world, at the same time the country’s Gaganyaan is also going to take our space sector to a new height.”

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

The pre-requisites for Gaganyaan mission include development of many critical technologies including human rated launch vehicle for carrying crew safely to space, Life Support System to provide an earth like environment to crew in space, crew emergency escape provision and evolving crew management aspects for training, recovery and rehabilitation of crew.

Various precursor missions are planned for demonstrating the Technology Preparedness Levels before carrying out the actual Human Space Flight mission. These demonstrator missions include Integrated Air Drop Test (IADT), Pad Abort Test (PAT) and Test Vehicle (TV) flights. Safety and reliability of all systems will be proven in unmanned missions preceding manned mission.

LVM3 rocket – The well proven and reliable heavy lift launcher of ISRO, is identified as the launch vehicle for Gaganyaan mission.

Human safety is of paramount importance in Gaganyaan mission. In order to ensure the same, various new technologies comprising of Engineering systems and Human centric systems are being developed and realised.

In 2023, in a stellar display of prowess, India soared to new heights with the successful soft landing of Chandrayaan-3 on the South Pole of the Moon and the successful launch of Aditya-L1, India’s first solar mission.

These milestones not only secured India’s standing in the global space economy but also fueled the engines for the private space sector in India.

Among other feats India now aims for setting up ‘Bharatiya Antariksha Station’ by 2035, and sending the first Indian to the Moon by 2040. (ANI)

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Gaganyaan: Flight Test Vehicle Abort Mission Scheduled For Saturday

By LokMarg 16th October 2023

ISRO is all set for the Flight Test Vehicle Abort Mission a key part of its ambitious human space mission Gaganyaan, between 7 am and 9 am this Saturday, the space agency confirmed on Monday through a post on X.

The Test Vehicle is a single-stage liquid rocket developed for this abort mission. The payloads consist of the crew module (CM) and crew escape systems (CES), along with others.

This flight will simulate the abort condition during the ascent trajectory. Crew escape systems with crude modules will be separated from the test vehicle at an altitude of about 17 km. Subsequently, the abort sequence will be executed autonomously commencing with the separation of crew escape systems and deployment of the series of parachutes, finally culminating in the safe touchdown of crew module in the sea, about 10 km from the coast of Sriharikota.

The crew module after its integration progress underwent various electrical testing, at ISRO’s facility in Bengaluru, and has been dispatched to Sriharikota on August 13.

This test will be a significant milestone for the overall Gaganyaan programme as a near-complete system is integrated for a flight test. The success of this test flight will set the stage for the remaining qualification tests and unmanned missions, leading to the first Gaganyaan mission with Indian astronauts.

ISRO Chief S Somanath had on Saturday said there would be at least three more tests of the same nature in the coming days.

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

This program will make India the fourth nation to launch a manned spaceflight mission after the US, Russia, and China.

The Gaganyaan mission entails the safe transportation of astronauts to space and back. A crucial component of this mission is the deployment of drogue parachutes, which play a pivotal role in stabilizing the crew module and reducing its velocity to a safe level during re-entry.

On August 23, India took a giant leap as the Chandrayaan-3 lander module successfully landed on the moon’s South Pole, making it the first country to have achieved the historic feat and bringing to an end the disappointment over the crash landing of the Chandrayaan-2, four years ago. India became the fourth country – after the US, China, and Russia – to have successfully landed on the moon’s surface.

After having landed, the Vikram lander and the Pragyan rover performed different sets of tasks on the lunar surface, including finding the presence of sulphur and other minor elements, recording relative temperature, and listening to movements around it.

Soon after the soft landing of Chandrayaan-3, India launched its maiden solar mission Aditya-L1 on September 2. So far in its journey, the spacecraft has undergone four earth-bound manoeuvres and a Trans-Lagrangean Point 1 Insertion (TL1I) manoeuvres, all successfully. In the process, the spacecraft successfully escaped the sphere of Earth’s influence.

In latest, the Aditya-L1 spacecraft performed a trajectory correction manoeuvre (TCM), for about 16 seconds, which was needed to correct the trajectory evaluated after tracking to keep it in its intended path. (ANI)

India To Launch Its First Atmanirbhar Human Space Flight Gaganyaan By 2024

By LokMarg 1st January 2023

Union Minister for Science and Technology Dr. Jitendra Singh on Sunday announced that the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is ready to launch India’s first Atmanirbhar human flight “Gaganyaan” by the year 2024.

The minister said that India is constantly making new achievements in the field of science and technology. Science is touching new heights under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which is why India’s first self-sufficient Gaganyaan will enter space in 2024.
Giving information about the achievements being made by the government in the field of science and technology, Jitendra Singh said “The idea of taking forward the ‘Gaganyaan’ program was in 2022 itself but due to Covid-19 it was delayed. In the next year (2024), there will be two preliminary launchings, the first launch will be unmanned, this experiment will be done to mark the routes because if the ‘Gaganyaan’ rocket goes into space then it should also return safely to the same way.”

“In the other experiment also there will be no human, instead a robot will be there as a human replica. When both the experiments assure that we are completely ready, then in the third one we will send humans into space,” the minister added.

Jitendra said that ‘Gaganyaan’ would be India’s first human flight and it will also be an excellent symbol of self-reliance as it will increase the confidence of the nation.

He also said that Indian origin Rakesh Sharma went to space, but he went under a Soviet mission of space, so this mission will mark Indian origin in space.

“This will be a historic initiative in itself because our space journey started very late compared to America and Russia but today the same country is doing our research with our knowledge and taking lessons and moving forward,” the minister said.

Jitendra Singh said, “The way PM Modi has given respect to science in the last 8 years, this has motivated the Indian scientists and has given a respectable place to them. Rules have been simplified, for example, space has been opened for private public participation, today the result is that private rockets are being launched from there and as soon as this year ends, you will get a wonderful kind of enthusiasm across the country.”

“While we will be fully prepared to launch “Gaganyaan” which will be the first human flight that will work to take an Astronaut of Indian origin to space of Indian origin, it will be the first mission of this type and hence also a pride for us. It will be a matter of confidence that this work of increasing our self-esteem will work because even though our space journey started late in comparison to America or Russia, today we are in a position where our research findings are similar to those of America and Russia. Countries work to advance their research by making it available,” he added. (ANI)