According to Sudhir Kumar, head of the ISRO Department for Capacity Development and Public Relations, relations between the Indian Space Research Organization and Roscosmos have begun since the country gained independenceBENGALURU /India/, February 14.
/tass/. Indian specialists in the field of space are in excellent relations with colleagues from Russia and look forward to continuing their partnership with Roscosmos. This was stated on Tuesday by Sudhir Kumar, head of the Department for Capacity Development and Public Relations of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).
"Russian specialists from Roscosmos and Indian specialists in the space field are very good friends. We have joint programs, we have a close partnership, we have extensive cooperation with this Russian space agency. And we look forward to continued cooperation between ISRO and Roscosmos," Kumar said on the sidelines of the international aerospace exhibition Aero India 2023, which is being held in Bangalore.
He noted that the relations between the specialists of the two countries have a long history, they began since the independence of India. "And the training of our crew for the Gaganian program took place at the Cosmonaut Training Center named after him. Yuri Gagarin in Russia. This is, of course, a very important program for us," the agency interlocutor recalled.
Kumar added that it is still difficult to name the exact date of the first national Indian space flight under the Gaganian program, pointing out that initially the project provides for sending two ships in unmanned mode to test the safety of onboard systems and crew life support systems.
"Our goal is to send the first such mission in unmanned mode by the end of this year. Then a second unmanned mission will be sent and soon after that we plan to send a manned [crewed ship] into space. The exact timing of the flight depends on the results of the first two test missions," the Indian specialist said.
Gaganian Manned Program
In August 2018, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi officially announced that his country would send the first national space crew into orbit by August 2022, when the country was preparing to celebrate 75 years of liberation from British colonial rule. The name of the project "Gaganian" (from the Sanskrit "gagana" - heaven) means "heavenly ship". Initially, it was planned that three crew members would spend five to seven days in orbit, a group of Indian astronauts have already been trained in the Russian Star City.
However, in November 2022, ISRO reported that due to the coronavirus pandemic, which stopped most of the work on the project in March 2020, the Gaganian mission was postponed to orbit.
The 14th Aero India International Aerospace Exhibition takes place from February 13 to 17 at the Elahanka Air Base in Bangalore in southern India. The air show is held every two years. Russia is an active participant in the exhibition, this year it presents over 200 samples of Russian military products.
