ISRO has joined the Indian Air Force to select and train 10 spacecraft personnel for the country’s first human-space mission or ‘Space Flight’ project or Gaganyaan.
We have our own criteria and requirements for selecting our crew and training them and have submitted the same to the IAF. The first two rounds of training of the crew will take place at the IAF’s Institute of Aerospace Medicine (Bengaluru), and the remaining phase of training will be abroad. Shivan, who has proposed staffing numbers, has suggested that 10 candidates be trained for the ‘astronaut’ project. We will finally pick three of them. – K Sivan, ISRO chairman
The countries that have been considered are Russia and France. But no final decision has been taken yet. The Institute of Aerospace Medicine (Bangalore-IAM), affiliated with the Armed Forces Medical Services (Bangalore-IAM), is the only organization to research space drugs in India and Southeast Asia.
It trains space personnel in research and air force personnel and pilots. The organization had previously clinched the Indo-Soviet space humanitarian mission in the 1980s. It does research in aerospace medicine and trains airmen and pilots. The institute, earlier which was named the Institute of Aviation Medicine, had given medical support to the Indo-Soviet, space flight program in the 1980s.
The infrastructure at IAM is one of the best in the country, and so ISRO wants to collaborate with IAM to train the crew members of Gaganyaan mission – Bipin Puri, director general, Armed Forces Medical Services (AFMS).
Shivan explained that ISRO would take two non-human missions to prevent the threat to human life. In these missions, human-like robots are sent. The first unmanned robot-bound space will be scheduled in December 2020. The second non-human experiment will be held in July of 2021. Lastly, human spaceflight will be conducted in December 2021.
If Gaganyaan is successful, India will become the fourth nation to achieve the feat.
