INDIA: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has announced that it will start a series of test flights for “Gaganyaan,” the first human space flight mission of India, in February 2023.
The Director of ISRO’s Human Space Flight Centre, Dr. R. Umamaheshwaran, revealed that the space agency has planned to deploy the heavy-lift Chinook helicopter and the massive C-17 Globemaster aircraft for testing the crew module.
The crew module will carry the team of astronauts into orbit for three days as part of the Gaganyaan human space flight mission. He was addressing the India Space Congress.
He added that the scientists at ISRO had finalised the design of the module’s Environment Control System, which ensures ambient living conditions for the astronauts in the crew service module when in space.
A minimum of seventeen different tests are slated to be carried out by ISRO before the final test launch of an unmanned module in December next year.
In his national address during the Independence Day celebrations in 2018, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the Gaganyaan Mission, with 2022 being the tentative target to achieve the first human space flight by India.
2022 was the year when the country completed 75 years of freedom from British colonial rule. The COVID pandemic, however, delayed the progress of the mission.
Dr. R. Umamaheshwaran feels that the designing process of the crew module of Gaganyaan was especially difficult as the astronauts had to be safe and comfortable within the module even during re-entry when the temperature outside the space capsule could go well beyond 2000 °C.
The Environment Control System is another critical element of the project as it has to provide oxygen to the astronauts while removing carbon dioxide and, at the same time, it has to maintain temperature and humidity levels as well as eliminate fire hazards.
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