Two Gaganyatris to train for ISS Mission

Wing Commander Shubhanshu Shukla has been selected to go to the ISS while Group Captain Prashanth Nair will be his back-up. These two Gaganyatris have been selected from the four IAF pilots shortlisted for first human spaceflight mission, ‘Gaganyaan’. The two will travel to the U.S. in the first week of August to train there for a mission to the International Space Station.

The main purpose of the India-U.S. joint mission to the ISS is to expose the two ‘Gaganyaatris’ to the way a spaceflight mission is organised and conducted and to give them flight experience, including working with the crew already on board the ISS. In the event that he flies to the ISS, Wing Commander Shukla has also been designated the prime mission pilot — a responsibility that will put him through the paces of conducting a mission.

The two ‘Gaganyatris’ will also be conducting “five different experiments” onboard the ISS. Some of them … originated in India” while “some are international experiments” in which India will be “joint partners”.

On June 22, 2023, the U.S. and India issued a joint statement after the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to USA. This was for “a joint effort to the International Space Station in 2024”. The two Gaganyaatris, are the Indian participants for that joint mission.

As per ISRO : “During the mission, the Gaganyaatris 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.”

On February 27, during a visit to the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram, Prime Minister Modi announced the names of the four candidates for Gaganyaan mission — the ambitious ISRO mission to fly Indian astronauts to space onboard an Indian launch vehicle.

The other two, apart from Wing Commander Shukla and Group Captain Nair, were Group Captains Ajit Krishnan and Angad Pratap. All four are test pilots with the Indian Air Force.

They have undergone training in India and Russia; according to the India-U.S. joint statement, NASA will also provide Wing Commander Shukla and Group Captain Nair “ training … at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas”.

According to ISRO, a “National Mission Assignment Board” selected two pilots for the joint mission. All astronauts going to the ISS need to be approved by the Multilateral Crew Operations Panel, which did so. This panel has representatives from the ISS’s five international partners: NASA, Russia’s Roscosmos, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency.

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 program manager, Ax-4 will fly no sooner than November 2024. At a conference in Las Vegas in late July/early August July 30 to August 1, representatives of Boryung, a South Korean pharmaceutical company that has invested in Axiom Space, said the mission could be postponed to early 2025, Space News reported. This information remains unconfirmed, however.

For its own Gaganyaan mission, ISRO has thus far completed the pad abort and the high-altitude abort tests, and has tested the crew escape system, among others.

The LVM-3 launch vehicle for the mission has virtually completed the process of being rated to carry humans. The crew module is still being developed and likely to be manufactured abroad. Work is on the capsule’s Environmental Control and Life Support System and the overall Integrated Vehicle Health Management System. 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.