Kochi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday announced India's first crew to fly to low-Earth orbit as part of the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Gaganyaan mission.
The four astronauts of the crewed mission PM Modi declared today at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram are Prashanth Balakrishnan Nair, (Group Captain) Angad Prathap, Ajit Krishnan and Shubanshu Shukla, The Indian Express reported.
The mission aims to launch a three-member crew into a Low Earth Orbit and bring them back after three days, according to NDTV.
The astronauts with vast experience as test pilots are either wing commanders or group captains in the Indian Air Force (IAF).
That they can respond quickly to exigencies, given their background, is a key factor
The selection of the crew members reportedly took place at IAF’s Institute of Aerospace Medicine.
The four astronauts have been training at the space agency’s astronaut training facility in Bengaluru.
In June 2019 Isro and Glavkosmos, which is a subsidiary of Russian space agency Roscosmos, signed an agreement for the training of the four astronauts.
Subsequently, the four astronauts trained at Russia’s Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre in February 2020 till March 2021.
Meanwhile, the US space agency NASA’s administrator Bill Nelson said in 2023 in Delhi that the agency would train an Indian astronaut for a mission to the International Space Station by the end of 2024.
Gaganyaan mission will showcase India’s space capabilities by launching astronauts to an orbit 400 kilometres above the Earth for a 3-day mission.