Gaganyaan: India’s Next Leap for Space Exploration

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India is developing rapidly in its space sector. After the success of the Chandrayaan 3 mission, ISRO has many new missions to work on. The Gaganyaan mission is one of the ongoing missions of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). It is India’s first crewed space mission. The success of this mission will make India appear on the list of countries capable of doing manned space missions. Here’s everything you should know about this mission.

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Gaganyaan

Gaganyaan is India’s first manned space mission in which ISRO plans to send 3 crew members to Low Earth Orbit for three days and bring them back to Earth safely. The success of this mission will make India one of the elite countries capable of sending humans to space. It will become the fourth country after the USA, China, and Russia to make this possible. The Space mission is planned to be launched in December 2024.

Gaganyaan Mission. Image Credit: vajiramandravi

Challenges in the Gaganyaan Mission

Like all other missions, ISRO has to face a lot of challenges to make this Gaganyaan Mission a reality. Two of the most important questions regarding this mission will be first what will be its trajectory? Second How it will return to Earth with the astronauts when the mission is completed? Here are a few challenges given below:

Selection And Training

15th August 2018

After the announcement of the Gaganyaan mission, however, the very first challenge was the selection and training of the astronauts. The selection problem was lying in the past. In 1982 Mr. Rakesh Sharma, the first Indian to travel to space was the Wing Commander in Indian Airforce. Similarly, this time ISRO recruited four officers from IAF again for their mission.

27th June 2019

For the training of the cosmonauts, ISRO signed a contract with the Russian ROSCOSMOS agency which is also part of ROSCOSMOS state corporation. On 20th February Just after one year training for all four cosmonauts commences. After a few weeks, training was put to a complete stop due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. After within two months in May training begins again with full potential. Finally, in March 2021 training for all four astronauts was completed and they all returned to India.

September 2021

After at least two years of training in Russia, ISRO scheduled another training session in Karnataka for all 11 pilots. These astronauts took the training for almost one week inside Fighter Jets. After that, they were all sent to another training session to meet different training aspects and skill demands.

ISRO constructs the Basic Astronauts Facility Conference Structure in Bengaluru, especially for the Gangayaan Mission and further training of its astronauts. This advanced facility includes three types of high-tech simulations for proper training, making astronauts ready to face the challenges above the horizon.

The three types of simulators were:

1. Virtual Reality Training Simulator (VRTS)
2. Machine Interactions Simulator
3. Simulated Crew Module Simulator

Creation of Space Suit

Another challenge in this mission involves the making of a space suit appropriate for this mission. Since this is India’s first space mission, it is obvious that a spacesuit will be a major requirement.

The best spacesuit-producing company, Zvezda, situated in Russia was established in 1952. This company provides portable life support systems for aircraft and spacecraft. This company produced the space suit for the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin, in 1961.

ROSCOSMOS’s subsidiary GLAVKOSMOS gave the responsibility of making the spacesuits of Indian Astronauts for this mission to Zvezda. This company is also making individual seats and custom-made couch liners for the astronauts.

Suitable and Required Food

The next requirement is to select and provide suitable food in the right quantity to the astronauts while in space. This responsibility is given to the Defence Food Research Laboratory, which is situated in Mysuru.

40 scientists have worked together and they have already made the ready-to-eat dishes for the astronauts. The required quantity will be delivered by them at the time of the mission.

Gaganyaan Mission Module. Image Credit: vajiramandravi

Modules of Gaganyaan

The weight of Gaganyaan is 8.2 tons and it has a carrying capacity of 3 human beings. Initially, the scientists divided this mission into four parts theoretically. The first part involved the designing and developing of the launch vehicle. ISRO has used its reliable and tested launch vehicle LVM-3, which was also used in Chandrayaan-3. LVM-3 is modified per a manned mission, since, Gaganyaan is a human space mission, it is now called HLVM-3(Human-rated LVM-3).

There is also an orbital module and crew escape system built into the spacecraft. After reaching space the orbital module will separate from the launch vehicle. The orbital module is developed keeping in view the safety of humans. This module consists of a crew module and a service module. The crew module is designed like the Earth’s environment. Furthermore, the crew module’s work is to bring the astronauts back to Earth safely. Whereas, the service module’s work is to give necessary support to the crew module while in space.

Lastly, there is a crew escape system, that is designed for the safety of the crew in any kind of emergency. This escape system will take the crew to a safe distance in case of emergency. For this purpose,  this system is built with quick-acting and high-burn-rate solid motors.

Trajectory of Gaganyaan

Keeping in mind the safety of astronauts, ISRO has planned an unmanned mission before the manned mission. This unmanned mission is a prototype for technology demonstration, safety, and reliability verification. This will study the system’s performance before the crewed flight.

In this unmanned mission, a Robot named Vyoma Mitra will be sent into space and will be brought back to Earth. If this unmanned mission succeeds then it will be a green light for the manned mission.

The manned mission’s LVM-3 will launch from Shree Hari Kota’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre. Once in space the Orbital module will detach from the Launch vehicle and rotate on orbit(400km above Earth) fulfilling the mission objectives. After the mission the service module will detach from the crew module and the crew module will be directed towards the Earth in the Bay of Bengal. Due to Earth’s gravity the crew module will be moving too fast and to control that, 2 parachutes have been attached to it.

The Gaganyaan mission is full of potential but it is still getting delayed, chances are it could take place in December 2024 or in 2025.

References

1. ISRO Gaganyaan Mission: ISRO’s Master Plan to Send Indians to Space
2. Gaganyaan