New Delhi, Sep 7: Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO's) human space mission 'Gaganyaan' will now have a France's space agency as a working group which will help in life support and medicine for the Indian crew.
Earlier on Thursday, India and France signed an agreement to collaborate and formed a working group for this first manned space mission. The announcement was made at the sixth edition of Bengaluru Space Expo by French space agency President Jean-Yves Le Gall. India has plannned to send three humans to space for five to seven days and the spacecraft will be placed in a low earth orbit of 300-400 k m from the earth's surface before 2022. The ISRO's mission is significant as it would make India one of the four countries in the world after Russia, US and China to launch a manned space flight. Jean Yves Le Gall, president of the National Centre for Space Studies (CNES), France explained how ISRO and CNES will be working together. "ISRO and CNES, the French space agency, will be combining their expertise in fields of space medicine, astronaut health monitoring, life support, radiation protection, space debris protection, and personal hygiene systems," Gall said. ISRO has also planned to conduct experiments on microgravity through its astronauts. Engineering teams have already begun discussions and it is envisioned that infrastructure such as CADMOS center for development of microgravity applications and space operations or the MEDES space clinic will be used for training of future Indian astronauts, as well as the exchange of specialist personnel, Gall said. Meanwhile, ISRO Chairman K Sivan said the joint vision statement was an umbrella agreement while today's MoU was more specific to the human space mission. The two space agencies also plan to work on Mars, Venus and asteroids. It can be recalled that France is one of the three countries - the other two being the US and Russia - who share robust cooperation in the three strategic areas of defence, nuclear and space.