Modi ‘directs’ ISRO to land man on moon by 2040, work towards interplanetary missions

Subject :Science and tech

Section: Space tech

Context:

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)’s space projects include:
- Gaganyaan mission, India’s first manned mission to space, is scheduled for 2025.
- To set up an Indian-crafted, indigenous space station (Bharatiya Antariksha Station) by 2035 and
- Land an Indian on the moon by 2040.
- Interplanetary missions, including a space vehicle to orbit Venus and one that will land on Mars.

Details:

The Department of Space, under which the ISRO functions, presented the state of preparedness and technologies developed for Gaganyaan.
Crew Escape System Test vehicle– a component of Gaganyaan, is scheduled for the test.
TV-D1 test flight: Test Vehicle Abort Mission-1 (TV-D1) will be a high altitude abort test as part of the Gaganyaan program.
- It would be a short-duration mission, and visibility from the launch view gallery of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota would be limited.
The DoS will make a road map for moon exploration, which will consist of a series of Chandrayaan missions, developing a new generation launch vehicle, constructing a new launch pad, setting up human-centric laboratories and associated technologies.
The International Space Station, developed and maintained by the U.S., Russia, Canada, Japan, and European agencies, is the largest space station but is expected to be decommissioned by 2030.

About the Gaganyaan mission:

Gaganyaan project envisages demonstration of human spaceflight capability by launching a crew of 3 members to an orbit of 400 km for a 3 days mission and bring them back safely to earth, by landing in Indian sea waters.
The project is accomplished through an optimal strategy by considering inhouse expertise, experience of Indian industry, intellectual capabilities of Indian academia & research institutions along with cutting edge technologies available with international agencies. The prerequisites for Gaganyaan mission include development of many critical technologies including human rated launch vehicle for carrying crew safely to space, Life Support System to provide an earth like environment to crew in space, crew emergency escape provision and evolving crew management aspects for training, recovery and rehabilitation of crew.
Various precursor missions are planned for demonstrating the Technology Preparedness Levels before carrying out the actual Human Space Flight mission. These demonstrator missions include Integrated Air Drop Test (IADT), Pad Abort Test (PAT) and Test Vehicle (TV) flights. Safety and reliability of all systems will be proven in unmanned missions preceding manned mission.

Major milestone planned:

Source: TH