What is Gaganyaan Mission All About?

Taking another giant leap in space, India is all set to launch another ambitious mission, Gaganyaan, the country's first crewed space mission.

The Gaganyaan mission aims to send three Indian cosmonauts into space for three days at the Low Earth Orbit of 400km. The Gaganyaan mission was first approved in December 2009 when the Indian government first agreed its funding and it was originally meant to be launched in December 2020.

However, it was delayed, and the total cost of the project is now estimated to be approximately INR 90Bln ($1Bln).

According to the Indian space ministry, Gaganyaan should be launched any time between 2024 and 2025. However, the ISRO chief has said that if necessary, the mission might be delayed further.

Russia's space agency Roscosmos trained four Indian Air Force (IAF) pilots for the Gaganyaan mission. And in 2021, Roscosmos subsidiary Glavkosmos confirmed that the training of all four cosmonauts was complete.

At present, all four cosmonauts are undergoing training at the Astronaut Training Facility in Karnataka's capital city Bengaluru, which includes mission-specific training.

In most cases, India names its space missions either after events in the country's history or words in its ancient language, Sanskrit. The name "Gaganayaan" belongs to the latter category, being a Sanskrit word which means "Celestial Vehicle".

Gaganyaan will consist of three parts: the first will be to perform a launch on 21 October; the second, at an as yet unspecified date, will carry a humanoid named Vyommitra into space; and once the success of these two missions is confirmed, a crewed mission will be send into orbit.

Kicking off Phase I of Gaganyaan, federal space minister Jitendra Singh said that India will launch an empty module in the small hours of 21 October and will bring it back safely to Earth.

In this test, the crew module will be ejected from the rocket, in case of mid-flight emergency.

The in-flight abort demonstration will last for about nine minutes, the rocket will resemble the crew module which is due eventually to take Indian cosmonauts to space.

As this is India's first man-crewed mission, the space agency's primary goal is to ensure safety of crew members in the event of in-flight anomalies, ISRO said.

The test module will have drogue parachutes designed to stabilize and slow the spacecraft, and other important equipment.

Crew Escape System (CES) and "CM fairing and Interface Adapters", which will be tested during the demonstration will help scientists to develop a plan of action in case of emergency.

As part of the second mission, India will send Vyommitra, a female-looking humanoid robot, to space.

The robot is capable of monitoring module parameters, sending out alerts, and carrying out life support functions.

The Defence Food Research Laboratory (DFRL) in Mysore, in the state of Karnataka, would take care of the crew members' nourishment. The menu will contain both vegetarian and non-vegetarian options, along with tea, coffee, fruit juices and desserts.

There will be no bread on the menu as it is feared that breadcrumbs could be left on the space station.

So far, only three nations have sent manned space missions to space - Russia, China, and the US. It is expected that after the success of Gaganyaan, India will be the fourth nation to enter the elite space club.