Indian Astronauts Resume Training For India’s First Manned Space Mission “Gaganyaan”

Highlights:

• 4 Indian astronauts have resumed their training in Russia for a manned mission
• This is India first manned space mission and is named Gaganyaan
• Expected cost of the project is said to be around R. 10,000 crore

Fours Cosmonauts have been shortlisted for India’s first ever manned space mission called “Gaganyaan” and they have resumed their training in Russia after it was put on hold due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic.

The Russian space agency called “Roscosmos” said, “Gagarin Research & Test Cosmonaut Training Center (GCTC) on May 12 resumed training of the Indian cosmonauts under the contract between Glavkosmos, JSC (part of the State Space Corporation Roscosmos) and the Human Spaceflight Center of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).” In a statement.

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All of the 4 India cosmonauts (astronauts trained by Russian space agency) are in good health. The Russian space agency added, “GCTC continues to observe anti-epidemic regulations according to which sanitary and hygienic measures are carried out at all the GCTC facilities, social distancing measures are applied and the presence of unauthorized persons is restricted; all employees and cosmonauts must wear medical masks and gloves,”.

Roscosmos even tweeted a picture of the cosmonaut wearing space suit bearing the Indian flag.

GCTC resumed training of the Indian cosmonauts — https://t.co/Ha4VJOx1lx

?‍??? Roscosmos specialists are giving theoretical classes on the basics of astrogation, the basics of manned spacecraft control and the Russian language to the Indian cosmonauts pic.twitter.com/KAZeRJFP8M

— РОСКОСМОС (@roscosmos) May 22, 2020

Four Indian Air Force fighter pilots are currently undergoing their training in Moscow and are likely to be the potential candidates for this Gaganyaan project.

Gangayaan is an ambitious Rs. 10,000 crore project which is expected to be launched in 2022, the year of India’s 75^th Independence, Roscosmos said and added that this week, the GCTC specialists are already providing them with theoretical classes on the basics of astrogation, the basis of manned spacecraft control along with the Russian language to these Indian cosmonauts.

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The contract for the training of 4 Indian cosmonauts between the Human Spaceflight Center of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Glavkosmos was signed on the 27^th June 2019 and their training started on the 10^th of February this year.

However, since the end of March 2020, due to the COVID-19 outbreak, lockdown was imposed even for the Indian cosmonauts which they carefully observed, it said.

Earlier the officials had said that after their training in Russia the Indian cosmonauts will receive a module-specific training in India itself. In this training in India, they will then be trained in crew and service modules which are designed by the Indian Space Research Organisation, learn to operate and work around it and also do simulations for their journey.