Joint Indo-US Spaceflight Mission

Two of the astronauts selected for its maiden human spaceflight mission, ‘Gaganyaan’, will travel to the U.S. in the first week of August to train there for a mission tenth International Space Station. In particular, Wing Commander Shubhanshu Shukla has been assigned to fly to the ISS while Group Captain Prashanth Nair will be his back-up.

The  mission:  On June 22, 2023, the U.S. and India issued a joint statement  after Prime Minister Narendra Modi met President Joe Biden. Among other things, the statement mentioned “a joint effort to the International Space Station in 2024”.

According to a ISRO statement on August 2 in which it said: “During the mission, the Gaganyatri will undertake selected scientific research and technology demonstration experiments on board the ISS as well as engage in space outreach activities. The experiences gained during this mission will be beneficial for [Gaganyaan] and it will also strengthen human space flight cooperation between ISRO and NASA.”

Mission parameters:  Per ISRO’s statement, its Human Spaceflight Centre has signed an agreement with Axiom Space, Inc. “for its upcoming Axiom-4 mission to the ISS”. The mission, colloquially called Ax-4, is the fourth crewed mission to the ISS organised by Axiom Space, a private company based in Houston.

Axiom plans to operate the world’s first commercial space station. Its current offerings include human spaceflight services, as part of which it selects and trains astronaut-candidates, charters launch vehicles, and plans and manages space missions.

SpaceX will provide the launch vehicle for the mission and its Crew Dragon capsule will house the crew. NASA has said the mission will last 14 days. According to the ISS’s programme manager, Ax-4 will fly no sooner than November 2024.

Schedule onboard the ISS:  ISRO chairman S. Somanath said that the main purpose of the India-U.S. joint mission to the ISS is to expose the two  astronauts to the way a spaceflight mission is organised and conducted and to give them flight experience, including working with the crew already onboard the ISS.

The two astronauts will also be conducting “five different experiments” onboard the ISS, according to Mr. Somanath, who added that “some of them … originated in India” while “some are international experiments” in which India will be “joint partners”. He declined to share specific details.

Status of  Gaganyaan: ISRO has thus far completed the pad abort and the high-altitude abort tests, and has tested the crew escape system, among others. The next major Gaganyaan milestones are a series of uncrewed suborbital and orbital test flights. The last of these is currently expected to happen in mid-2025, although the date could slip further.

(The Hindu)

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