With human space flight, India to push frontiers

With human space flight, India to push frontiers

News:

1. Space suits developed by ISRO for Indian astronauts.

Important facts:

2. Gaganyaan, the human space flight programme green –flagged set for 2022.

3. V.R. Lalithambika, a specialist in advanced launcher technologies, will helm the project as Director of the Human Space Flight Project.

4. Most of the critical technologies and hardware required for the project are ready.

5. ISRO would now stitch them up into a complete project and present a comprehensive project report to get a formal approval of the government.

6. ISRO has tested the necessary critical technologies required for the Human Space Flight Programme(HSP) .

7. After achieving the mission, India would be the fourth nation to circle Earth after the Soviets, the Americans and the Chinese.

8. This year, ISRO also conducted an experiment for emergency escape for astronauts called the Pad Abort Test.

9. The most critical elements of the human mission are the Environment Control and Life Support Systems that make the crew capsule liveable and the flight safe for the astronauts.

10. The spacecraft will be monitored 24/7 from the ISRO Telemetry Tracking and Command Centre in Peenya.

11. A new dedicated control centre for HSP would be set up at ISTRAC. It must be tracked globally through ISRO stations or of other countries.

12. The Space Applications Centre which makes electronic devices and instruments for ISRO missions will also get refurbished.

13. Various defence labs will be tapped for crew support systems.

14. ISRO will collaborate with the Indian Air Force and its Institute of Aerospace Medicine, Bengaluru, to train astronauts.

15. Much of the work related to ramping up of infrastructure and supply of hardware would be outsourced to industry in a major way and academia would be involved.