Mission Gaganyaan: India's first mission to send humans to space runs into trouble

Bengaluru: India’s first mission to send humans into space, Gaganyaan, is running late due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has not yet released the revised timeline for the project. Mission Gaganyaan aims to take a crew of three astronauts to an orbit 400 km above the Earth’s surface. The project was conceived in 2007. It was formally started in 2018 and Rs 10,000 crore was allocated for it. The first crewed mission was to be launched in December 2021. Two uncrewed missions were to be launched in December 2020 and July 2021 before the final launch. The government kept claiming during this time that there would be no delay in the project due to the coronavirus pandemic. But the first crewed flight was rescheduled from 2020 to 2021 and then to 2022. But in September this year, Union Minister of State for Science and Technology Jitendra Singh revised the dates to the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024. According to The Print report, ISRO has not responded on this matter. ISRO will send robots into space In the second unmanned flight, ISRO will send a robot named Vyommitra, which will monitor changes in a human body. It will monitor heart rate, blood pressure and other changes in space. This robot was first shown by ISRO in an event in 2020. The Gaganyaan mission may be running late, but ISRO is working closely with private startups. Recently the country’s first private rocket has been launched from ISRO’s launchpad in Sriharikota. IAF pilots will go to space In 2018, 12 Indian Air Force (IAF) pilots were shortlisted to be part of this crew. He was subjected to physical and psychological tests at the Institute of Aerospace Medicine, Bengaluru. Of these, 4 pilots were sent to Russia in January 2020 for further training. An astronaut training facility was set up in Bengaluru in May this year. Here the four astronauts will go through theory, physical fitness, flight suit training, microgravity, among other things. Aim of Gaganyaan mission According to the information, Gaganyaan mission will be launched from LVM3 rocket. It will take the crew 16 minutes to reach space, where they will spend three days conducting scientific experiments. Astronauts will be in Earth’s orbit 400 km above the surface. During the return, the capsule in which the crew will live will separate at an altitude of 120 km. It will splash down in the sea nearby 36 minutes after separation.