Selection of Gaganyatris for Gaganyan Mission to commence soon
Both Institute of Aerospace Medicine and DRDO’S Defence Bio Engineering and Electro Medical Laboratory (DEBEL) will soon commence the process of helping the IAF to select the men for manning the Up coming manned mission into Space.
This will be India’s first manned mission to space- the Gaganyaan space mission. The IAF will be asking for volunteers from among its Pilots, Navigators and Flight Engineers. The volunteers will be then shortlisted to identify a number of ace pilots to undergo a number of tests at the IAM and DEBEL including psychological assessments. Those qualifying the tests will then be sent to the ISRO facility for final Shortlisting and mission training.
A certain number of astronauts will be chosen for the Gaganyaan Mission and the selection process will definitely completed before the end of this year. The process will begin with issue of a formal request by Indian Space Research Organisation to the IAF.The mission is aimed to be launched by early 2022, in time to celebrate the 75th Independence Day. Thus the entire schedule right from shortlisting, training to final selection is going to be a very tight one.
There is heavy speculation that the first set of Gaganyatris will also have a woman astronaut that would be selected from among the women pilots in the IAF. The IAF now also has women fighter pilots to be considered for the project along with highly experienced women pilots flying transport aircrafts and choppers since long.
The first mission will definitely be manned by pilots only but in the future, the crew will be selected depending on the mission. After All India too will be setting up its Aerospace Force in the foreseeable future. Later even scientists and specialised personnel will also be sent to space when all operational and safety procedures are in place.
Though Russia has offered to train Indian the crew for the mission, India has already initiated the process to build up its own training establishment for selection and training. We already have the IAF’s IAM and the DRDO’ DEBEL to kick start the process.
