IAF, ISRO in talks to set up space lab

Preparing for space mission

The Indian Air Force (IAF) is holding talks with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on establishing a space lab here, that could possibly lead to India sending a man to space.

The director general of medical services (AIR), air marshal Padma Bandopadhyay told reporters here the Indian Society of Aerospace Medicine (ISAM) is seeking to collaborate with ISRO to develop a spacecraft to carry a man to space.

However, she sounded a note of caution, saying the space lab was at a conceptual stage and discussions with ISRO were also in a preliminary stage. The proposed lab, planned to be set up at the Institute of Aerospace Medicine (IAM), IAF premises here, would focus on the nature of effects that a man in space in long duration would have and related aspects.

Factors like zero gravity, physiological and psychological ones and matters pertaining to simulation and disorientation and things of that nature are proposed to be studied there.

She refused to hazard a guess on a possible time-frame for India's manned mission, noting that it depended on many factors. But officials said it's bound to take some years.

But she expressed confidence that sending a man to space by India is not unrealistic. "It will happen one day. We can't run away from it. Space is a reality. Date and time, we will not know. When the government says, we will go ahead. The project will be dictated by national requirement."

India's lunar mission Chandrayaan-1, slated for 2007-08, is an unmanned one. This mission is aimed at expanding the scientific knowledge about the moon and upgrading India's technological capability.

The ISRO chairman said department clearance had been received for making reusable and recoverable launch vehicles and detailed designing had started.

An exclusive satellite for the study of tropical climate would be launched in 2008-09, which was a joint Indo-French mission. The designing will be done by France and India and the satellite will be launched aboard a PSLV, he said.