Navy, ISRO Join Hands For Gaganyaan Recovery Training Plan

Ahead of the launch of India's space mission scheduled for next year, the Indian Navy and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) have joined hands and come up with a recovery training plan for Gaganyaan at the Water Survival Training Facility (WSTF) at INS Garuda, Kochi.

In a significant step towards realising India's ambitious Gaganyaan mission to put an Indian in the space with the help of indigenously developed technology, a human spaceflight is scheduled to be launched in the last quarter of 2024. This comes after successfully sending two unmanned flights.

According to ISRO, the Gaganyaan project envisages a demonstration of human spaceflight capability by launching a crew of three members to an orbit of 400 km for a three-day mission and bringing them back safely to earth by landing in Indian sea waters.

The training document was jointly released by Vice-Admiral Atul Anand, Director-General of Naval Operations, S. Unnikrishnan Nair, Director of ISRO's Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), and Umamaheshwaran R., Director of ISRO's Human Space Flight Centre (HSFC).

The document outlines the training plan for recovery of the Gaganyaan crew module, defines overall requirements for training of various teams participating in recovery operations, including (navy) divers, MARCOs (maritime commandos), medical specialists, communicators, technicians and naval aviators, according to Navy officials.

The recovery training is planned in incremental phases starting from unmanned recovery to manned recovery training in harbour and open sea conditions. The recovery operations are being led by the Indian Navy in coordination with other government agencies, the officials said.

The crew module recovery model was also formally handed over to the Navy's elite marine commando unit at the state-of-the-art WSTF. The mass and shape simulated mock-up will be used for familiarisation and training of Gaganyaan recovery teams. The Navy will also assist ISRO by undertaking a series of trials to fine-tune standard operating procedures for training the crew and recovery teams of Gaganyaan.

The parachutes to ensure the safe landing of re-entry capsule carrying astronauts on Earth's surface were shipped to ISRO facility in Bengaluru earlier this month. They have been developed by Agra-based Aerial Delivery Research and Development Establishment (ADRDE), a laboratory under the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).