Gaganyaan
Gaganyaan is an Indian crewed orbital spacecraft intended to be the formative spacecraft of the Indian Human Spaceflight Programme. The spacecraft is being designed to carry three people, and a planned upgraded version will be equipped with rendezvous and docking capability. In its maiden crewed mission, Indian Space Research Organisation 's largely autonomous capsule will orbit the Earth at altitude for up to seven days with a two or three-person crew on board. The crewed vehicle is planned to be launched on ISRO's GSLV Mk III in December 2021. This Hindustan Aeronautics Limited manufactured crew module had its first un-crewed experimental flight on 18 December 2014., design of the crew module has been completed. Defence Research and Development Organisation will provide support for critical human-centric systems and technologies like space grade food, crew healthcare, radiation measurement and protection, parachutes for the safe recovery of the crew module and fire suppression system.
On 11 June 2020, it was announced that while the first uncrewed Gaganyaan launch has been delayed due to COVID-19 pandemic in India, overall timeline for crewed launches is expected to remain unaffected.
History
Preliminary studies and technological development of Gaganyaan started in 2006 under the generic name "Orbital Vehicle". The plan was to design a simple capsule with an endurance of about a week in space, a capacity of two astronauts, and a splashdown landing after re-entry. The design was finalized by March 2008 and was submitted to the Government of India for funding. The funding for the Indian Human Spaceflight Programme was sanctioned in February 2009, but it fell short of full political support and it obtained limited developmental funding. Initially, the first uncrewed flight of the orbital vehicle was proposed to be in 2013, then it was revised to 2016. However, in April 2012 it was reported that funding problems placed the future of the project in serious doubt; and in August 2013 it was announced that all crewed spaceflight efforts by India had been designated as being 'off ISRO's priority list'. By early 2014 the project was reconsidered and was one of the main beneficiaries of a substantial budget increase announced in February 2014. ISRO is developing the Gaganyaan orbital vehicle on the tests performed with their scaled 550 kg Space Capsule Recovery Experiment, which was launched and recovered in January 2007.The latest push for the Indian Human Spaceflight Programme took place in 2017, and it was accepted and formally announced by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 15 August 2018. The current design calls for a crew of three. ISRO will perform four biological and two physical science experiments related to micro-gravity during the Gaganyaan mission.
Funding and infrastructure
A crewed spacecraft would require about 124 billion over a period of seven years, including the 50 billion for the initial work of the crewed spacecraft during the Eleventh Five-Year Plan out of which govt released 500 million in 2007-08. In December 2018, the government approved further 100 billion for a 7-days crewed flight of 3 astronauts to take place by 2021.Madhavan Chandradathan, director of Satish Dhawan Space Centre, stated that ISRO would need to set up an astronaut training facility in Bangalore. Newly established Human Space Flight Centre will coordinate the IHSF efforts. Existing launch facilities will be upgraded for launches under Indian Human Spaceflight project with extra facilities needed for launch escape systems. Russia is likely to provide astronaut training, and assist with some aspects in the development of the launcher. In spring 2009 the full-scale mock-up of crew capsule of Gaganyaan was built and delivered to Satish Dhawan Space Centre for training of astronauts.
India has already successfully developed and tested several building blocks, including re-entry space capsule, pad abort test, safe crew ejection mechanism in case of rocket failure, flight suit developed by DEBEL and the powerful GSLV-MkIII launch vehicle. Having met all required technological keystones, the Indian Human Spaceflight Programme was accepted and formally announced by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 15 August 2018. Gaganyaan will be the first crewed spacecraft under this programme.
ISRO's Human Space Flight Centre and Glavcosmos, which is a subsidiary of the Russian state corporation Roscosmos, signed an agreement on July 1, 2019 for cooperation in the selection, support, medical examination and space training of Indian astronauts. An ISRO Technical Liaison Unit will be setup in Moscow to facilitate the development of some key technologies and establishment of special facilities which are essential to support life in space.
On 25 October 2019, ISRO's Human Space Flight Centre and Glavcosmos signed a contract to evaluate the possibility of using Russian life support systems and thermal control for Gaganyaan.
Description
Gaganyaan is a fully autonomous spacecraft designed to carry a 3-member crew to orbit and safely return to the Earth after a mission duration of up to seven days. Its service module is powered by two liquid propellant engines. The crew module is mated to the service module, and together they are called the orbital module. Based on the payload capability of the GSLV-III booster, the service module would have a mass of about.The space capsule will have life support and environmental control systems. It will be equipped with emergency mission abort and emergency escape that can be done at the first stage or second stage of the rocket burn. The nose of the original version of the orbital vehicle was free for a docking mechanism, but primary entry was evidently through a side hatch secured by explosive bolts.
Following two non-crewed orbital flight demonstrations of the spacecraft, a crewed Gaganyaan is slated to be launched on the GSLV Mk III launcher in late 2021. Though the spacecraft is designed to carry 3 people, it is likely that the first flight will carry one person only.
About 16 minutes after liftoff from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, the rocket will inject the spacecraft into an orbit above Earth. When ready to land, its service module and solar panels will be disposed off before reentry. The capsule would return for a parachute splashdown in the Bay of Bengal. Crew module is equipped with two parachutes for redundancy, while one parachute is good enough for safe splashdown. The parachutes would reduce the speed of the crew module from over to under at splashdown.
List of flights
Testing
On 13 February 2014, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited handed over the first boilerplate prototype of Crew Module structural assembly to ISRO for Crew Module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment. ISRO's Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre would equip the Crew Module with systems necessary for life support, navigation, guidance and control systems. ISRO undertook an uncrewed test launch of the vehicle aboard the GSLV Mk3 X1, for an experimental sub-orbital flight on 18 December 2014. The GSLV Mk3 launcher with a dummy upper cryogenic stage was launched at 9:30 am from the second launch pad at Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota. The crew module separated from the rocket at an altitude of 126 km. On board motors controlled and reduced the speed of the module until an altitude of. Thrusters were shutoff at that altitude and atmospheric drag further reduced speed of the capsule. The module heat shield was expected to experience temperature in excess of. Parachutes were deployed at an altitude of to slow down the module which performed a splashdown in the Bay of Bengal near Andaman and Nicobar islands.This flight was used to test orbital injection, separation and re-entry procedures and systems of the Crew Capsule. Also tested were the capsule separation, heat shields and aerobraking systems, deployment of parachute, retro-firing, splashdown, flotation systems and procedures to recover the Crew Capsule from the Bay of Bengal. Inflight launch abort and parachute tests are expected to be conducted by the end of 2019.