Indian Human Spaceflight Initiative (HSI

What is Gaganyan mission?

Gaganyaan Programme is first Human Spaceflight of India to low earth orbit for a mission duration ranging from one orbital period to a maximum of seven days. 

A human rated GSLV Mk-lll will be used to carry the orbital module which will have necessary provisions for sustaining a 3-member crew for the duration of the mission.

The necessary infrastructure for crew training, realization of flight systems and ground infrastructure will be established to support the Gaganyaan Programme. 

ISRO will collaborate extensively with National agencies, laboratories, academia and industry to accomplish the Gaganyaan Programme objectives.

PM announced Gaganyan to launched by 2022 when India will celebrate 75 years of independence. 

Strategic shift in ISROs outlook?

Vikram Sarabhai wanted India to use space technology to solve “real problems of man and society”.

After having followed Sarabhai’s vision for four decades during which ISRO contributed immensely to nation’s development through communication and earth observation satellites, the agency has finally decided to turn the “fantasy” of a manned space flight into reality. 

ISRO is already a pioneer in space applications and space science now its plan to venture in to manned missions will keep India at forefront of space technology. 

Critical Technologies for Human Space Flight (HSF):  

1. Orbital Module: Divided into a crew module to house the astronauts and a service module that maintains the speed and orientation of the spacecraft 
2. Crew Escape System: In case of a malfunction at launch, crew capsule will be ejected to a safe distance
3. Crew Module: Has to be tested for maintaining temperature and pressure comfortable for humans
4. Deep Space Network: Need to track the module 24*7 as it orbits the earth
5. Re-entry and Recovery system: System to withstand high temperatures (due to friction with the air) when the spacecraft re-enters earth’s atmosphere.
6. ISRO scientists successfully demonstrated the re-entry technology to keep the astronauts cool and safe when they carried out a Crew Module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment (CARE) in December 2014.
7. Rocket Launcher: The GSLV Mark III has been modified to improve reliability and accommodate orbital module
8. Astronaut Training: Crew has to be trained to operate in zero gravity, withstand high g-forces on launch and re-entry. ISRO might seek foreign collaboration for astronaut training
9. Space suits for astronauts.

Foreign collaboration? 

Astronaut training in Russia after initial training by IAF

French space agency:

ISRO and CNES, the French space agency, will be combining their expertise in fields of space medicine, astronaut health monitoring, life support, radiation protection, space debris protection and personal hygiene systems.

Benefits of HSI (Human spaceflight Initiative)

• Gaganyaan Programme will establish a broader framework for collaboration between ISRO, academia, industry, national agencies and other scientific organizations.
• It will allow pooling in of diverse technological and industrial capabilities and enable broader participation in research opportunities and technology development benefitting large number of students and researchers.
• The flight system realization will be through industry.
• It is expected to generate employment and train human resources in advanced technologies.
• It will inspire large number of young students to take up science and technology careers for national development.
• Gaganyaan Programme is a national effort and will involve the participation of the Industry, Academia and National Agencies spread across the length and breadth of the country.

Impact of HSI

• The programme is expected to spur research and development within the country in niche science and technology domains.
• Huge potential for technology spinoffs in areas such as medicine, agriculture, industrial safety, pollution, waste management, water and food resource management etc.
• Human spaceflight programme will provide a unique micro-gravity platform in space for conducting experiments and test bed for future technologies.
• The programme is expected to give impetus to economic activities within the country in terms of employment generation, human resource development and enhanced industrial capabilities.
• Human Spaceflight capability will enable India to participate as a collaborating partner in future Global space exploration initiatives with long term national benefits.

Challenges to mission Gaganyan;

1. Technological Challenges

• Launcher: Though the GSLV Mk III has been modified to enable human space flights, to be human rated and fail-safe. Former ISRO chairman K. Radhakrishnan points out that for a human space flight, the launcher must have a reliability of 98% or above, or only two failures in 100 launches.
• Crew Escape System: It is important to develop a crew escape system to prepare for any emergency from the launch phase onwards and ensure the reliability of such a system is as high as to allow a failure rate of only one in 500 launches.

2. Threat from Space Debris

3. Financial Implications

Future of human spaceflight initiative of ISRO

Manned mission to moon and space station.

Indian space station would be extension of human space flight mission.      

Chandrayaan 3

ISRO has also quietly begun work on another soft-landing mission to the moon with most of the same features of Chandrayaan-2 and almost on the back of the failure of the latter’s lander on the lunar surface on September 7.

It will be almost a repetition of the July 2019 Chandrayaan-2 mission in the configuration of spacecraft, the landing spot on the moon and the experiments to be conducted on the lunar surface.

The third mission is ISRO’s bid to realize for itself the difficult technology of soft-landing on another planetary body. The agency is undertaking it as the landing module of the second mission crashed barely five minutes before it was to have landed on the lunar surface.

Chandrayan 1, 2, 3

Why south pole?

The Lunar South pole is especially interesting because of the lunar surface area that remains in shadow is much larger than that at the North Pole. There could be a possibility of presence of water in permanently shadowed areas around it. In addition, South Pole region has craters that are cold traps and contain a fossil record of the early Solar System.