Russia to take Indian astronaut to space in 2013

Thursday, December 11, 2008 at 5:12 am

An Indian astronaut will embark on a mission to space in a Russian spacecraft within the next five years, nearly three decades after Rakesh Sharma undertook the historic flight.

This mission, tentatively scheduled for 2013, will be the precursor to Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) maiden human spaceflight planned to be launched in 2015.

India and Russia signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Joint Activities in the Field of Human Spaceflight Programme during the recent visit of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

“As per the agreement, an Indian astronaut will first go on a space mission on a Russian spacecraft. This will be followed by an Indian manned mission to space in 2015,” ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair said.

Under the MoU signed by Nair and his Russian counterpart Anatoly Perminov, ISRO and Russian space agency Roskosmos will jointly build the spacecraft for the Indian manned mission.

“We will be redesigning the Soyuz space capsule of the Russian agency for our mission,” Nair said.

Government has already sanctioned Rs 95 crore to study all aspects of the manned space mission under which ISRO plans to send a two-member crew on a week-long sojourn in space.

The spacecraft, to be placed in a low earth orbit, will splash in the Indian ocean after completion of the mission.

ISRO is setting up an astronaut training centre in Bangalore. For the two-member mission, a batch of 200 would be initially selected and trained before opting for four persons out of which two would go on the mission.

(Agencies)

( This post is from an independent writer. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the author and are not endorsed by APakistanNews.Com.)

Russia to take Indian astronaut to space in 2013

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