India's space ambitions

A new set of timelines for manned space missions by the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) was listed in the runup to tests for India’s first manned mission, Gaganyaan. On Saturday, the first flight test for Gaganyaan will start. There will be at least 20 different tests, and at least three uncrewed flights before Isro attempts to put three gaganauts into orbit around Earth. During the preview of the mission tests, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked Isro to target the establishment of a space station by 2035, and to target a manned mission to the moon by 2040. The Gaganyaan Mission will see at least three tests of the Human Rated Launch Vehicle, which would eventually carry a crew of three persons out to an orbit of 400 km, and bring them back with the capsule touching down in the sea near Sriharikota. The first test flight includes a demonstration of the crew escape system.

Putting humans into space would take India into an exclusive club. Setting up a space station and a manned moon mission both involve much greater complexities than an orbital flight. Manned space travel involves overcoming extreme temperature differences. Space is very cold, while re-entry into the atmosphere creates enough heat from friction to melt metals. There are also big variations in gravity — rocket launches create high g-forces while there’s micro-gravity during orbit. Space is also a vacuum with no protection against dangerous solar radiation. While a moon mission involves a matter of a few weeks, a space station implies habitability for indefinite periods extending for many years. Creating habitats and life-support systems sufficiently shielded for humans to survive in space is a challenge. Bringing crews back safely is another challenge. Monitoring and maintaining their health remotely are also difficult.

Isro will have to develop the skills and learning necessary to do all this. This involves big advances in material sciences to design vehicles that can handle extreme conditions, as well as advances in telemedicine, and in areas such as the recycling of body waste products and air-purification. Given the thrust of the aerospace policy, much of the design and manufacture of the Gaganyaan equipment are to be done by Indian firms, with Isro setting the specifications. This means there will be a rapid dissemination of the requisite technologies and skills required in the aerospace ecosystem. In turn, that could mean rapid development of commercial off-the-shelf applications. For example, telemedicine equipment is used in health care and gymnasiums, and space-recycling systems can be scaled up to clear urban sewage and waste.

There are geopolitical implications as well. India has traditionally teamed up with the Roscosmos agency and used Russian facilities and equipment. It was intending to do so to train for the Isro manned missions until the Ukraine war. It has since signed up for the Artemis Accords, which means it will cooperate with and would gain access to its technology in some areas. In addition, Indian contractors would be eligible to bid for tenders of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and India would participate in its missions which target putting a space station in orbit around the moon as well as the creation of a habitat on the moon. In the long term, Artemis contemplates space mining as well. Thus, apart from purely scientific payoffs, there could be many commercial gains from manned missions.