Group Captain Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair, Group Captain Ajit Krishnan, Group Captain Angad Pratap, and Wing Commander Shubhanshu Shukla are India’s astronauts-designate for Gaganyaan, India’s first crewed space mission, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Tuesday.
All four Indian Air Force officers have had extensive experience as test pilots and are currently in training for the mission. Modi, who bestowed them with the prestigious astronaut wings, described them as “four forces” who represent the aspirations and optimism of 1.4 billion Indians.
The announcement was made at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thumba, Kerala, days after the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said it had successfully tested the human readiness of the cryogenic engine that will be used on the Gaganyaan mission vehicles.
The first mission flight, Gaganyaan-1, an unmanned test flight to check technology readiness, is expected by the end of 2024. The manned mission, which will take a three-member crew into a low earth orbit of 400 km altitude and return to Earth after three days, will follow.
In 1984, Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian in space when he flew to the Salyut 7 space station on a Soviet spacecraft. In 2006, India started work on an orbital vehicle mission that was later named Gaganyaan. As the astronauts-designate are named, here’s where the various aspects of the mission stand.
ISRO will use its LVM3 rocket for all of Gaganyaan missions. LVM3, earlier called GSLV-MkIII, is the Indian space agency’s most powerful launch vehicle that has flown seven times without failure. The rocket consists of liquid stage, solid stage, and cryogenic stage.
ISRO has reconfigured all components of LVM3 to meet human rating requirements. On February 14, final tests on the cryogenic engine, known as CE20, were performed. The engine successfully passed the test and was certified for missions that would transport humans to space.
The Vikas engine to be used in the liquid stage, and the solid booster, which is part of the solid stage, have already qualified for the missions.
The special flight engine, which ignites as the rocket lifts off, has completed acceptance tests. These tests certify/ qualify the test performance of the hardware according to the mission requirement. The technology or development is then applied in the final mission.
