indica News Bureau-
As part of India’s Gaganyan Mission, scheduled for December 2020 (uncrewed) and December 2021 (crewed), three Indian astronauts will travel to space next year in the spacecraft designed by Indian Space Research Organization.
The training of the four astronauts, each in their mid 30s to 40s, identified by ISRO, will begin in Russia in the third week of January 2020.
ISRO chief K Sivan told reporters in Bengaluru that the four astronauts are four male pilots of the Indian Air Force.
” They are scheduled to leave for Moscow in the third week of January to train at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre for 15 months as candidates for Gaganyaan”, said Sivan, adding that the four were selected through basic fitness and health tests at the IAF’s Institute of Aerospace Medicine in Bengaluru. In Moscow, they will learn the skills of life and survival in a narrow capsule, before, during and after travelling away from earth’s gravity while managing the travel around earth.
Gaganyaan is a crewed orbital spacecraft intended to send astronauts to space for a minimum of seven days by 2022, as part of the Indian Human Spaceflight Program. Last year, ISRO had said it wanted woman astronauts to be part of the mission.
K Sivan said today that many of Gaganyaan’s systems needed to be tested, and that crew training would be a major activity this year.
