Astronauts For ISRO Gaganyaan Mission Will Train In Russia¡¯s Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre

Astronauts for India's first manned space mission Gaganyaan will commence training at Russia's iconic Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre starting next year, as revealed by a senior Russian space official yesterday.

ISRO/ AFP

Gaganyaan, that is scheduled for the year 2022 is expected to take onboard three astronauts. These astronauts will be picked from the Indian armed forces and they'll commence training under the guidance of the Russian Space Agency.

The update for the training of the astronauts was stated by Dmitry Loskutov, Head of Glavcosmos, in a conversation with Tass news agency at the Dubai Airshow 2019. He said in a statement, "The education and training of gaganauts (astronauts) at the Cosmonaut Training Centre are planned to start already next year but this largely depends on the results of the selection by health parameters and the timeframe for the Indian side to decide whom they finally select and send to Russia for training,"

ISRO is currently in works of developing its own manned programme. He further stated that a flight by an Indian astronaut to the International Space Station isn't planned as of now.

In July, Roscosmos announced that Glavcosmos (an arm part of Roscosmos) and the Human Space Flight Center of the Indian Space Research Organisation had signed a contract on assistance in the medical check-up and training of Indian astronauts.

ISRO

In September, IAF completed Level-1 of Indian Astronaut selection at Institute of Aerospace Medicine. Selected Test Pilots underwent extensive physical exercise tests, lab investigations, radiological as well as clinical tests including a complete psych evaluation. Wing Commander Nikhil Rath of the Indian Air Force was one of the few who made it to the next level of selection of astronauts.

The Yuri Gagarin Research and Test Cosmonaut Training Centre is named after the legend Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin who was the first man to enter space that started the space race between Russia and America.