SPACED OUT

While other space agencies have busy schedules, ISRO’s launches, including Gaganyaan, slip into 2021

- REKHA DIXIT

MISSION GAGANYAAN will not take off this year. However, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is still hopeful that the last of the three flights in the mission, the one with Indian astronauts, should make it to the 2022 deadline, to coincide with the 75th anniversary of independence.

The first of the three flights of Gaganyaan was to have taken off this December, followed by another unmanned flight next year. The delay has been conveyed to the Space Commission.

Gaganyaan, India’s human space flight mission, is a three-flight programme, with only the third actually carrying the astronauts into a lower earth orbit. Given that India is not sending any animals to space before launching the astronauts, the first two flights are important for testing the organisation’s capabilities, including the life-support systems.

Instead of astronauts, the first two flights will have onboard Vyommitra, a “half humanoid” (as she does not have legs) to help check the systems in the crew module in situ, including temperature, pressure levels and oxygen availability. She will have some level of autonomy to communicate with the ground station.

ISRO’s launch calendar has been heavily impacted by the pandemic, and there has been no launch from its spaceport, Sriharikota, this year. In fact, the only ISRO launch this year was G-SAT 30, but it was carried by a French rocket, Ariane, which took off from French Guiana on January 17. Although officials confirm that there may be around three to four launches before the year is over, they admit that the deadlines of several launches planned for the latter half of this year may slip into the next calendar year. This could have a cascading effect on the next year’s plans, too.