India's first human space flight mission is expected to be delayed by one year due to the adverse impact from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hisana Thasneem
Gaganyaan, India's first human space flight mission is expected to be delayed by one year due to the adverse impact from the COVID-19 pandemic as per the reports of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) officials.
Gaganyaan is the first human flight programme that would take Indian astronauts to space. It is designed to be an Indian crewed orbital spacecraft which is intended to send 3 astronauts to space by 2022, as part of the Indian Human Spaceflight Programme. This mission can make India, 4th nation in the world to launch a Human Spaceflight.
Gaganyaan module is designated to be fully autonomous that can carry a 3-member crew safely to orbit and to return them back earth. The mission is targeted up to a duration seven days. The service module is fuelled by liquid propellant engines. Both the crew module and service module are attached together, and they constitute 8.2 t (18,000 lb) orbital module. The space capsule will have both the environmental control and life support systems. It will also have emergency mission abort and emergency escape that can be done during the first or second stage of the rocket burn.
But as per the reports since there is a delay in the Gaganyaan mission, two uncrewed missions would be undertaken prior to the manned missions and the launching dates were changed accordingly. The unmanned missions were launched one in December 2020 and the other one is expected to release in July 2021, followed by the manned mission which was scheduled in December 2021.
Bengaluru-headquartered ISRO reported that GSLV MkIII, heavy lift launcher is identified for the Gaganyaan mission and the human rating process for this rocket is under progress. The high thrust solid propellant strap-on boosters S200 play a significant role in the human-rated GSLV MkIII. In order to human rate the booster, many new design features have been introduced in the hardware.