[FPSPACE] More details on India's manned space project

[Peter Pesavento]

>From the Times (UK)

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5789385.ece

 

February 23, 2009


India approves £1.7bn plan to launch astronauts as Asian space race hots up


Jeremy Page in Delhi

India has approved a £1.7 billion plan to launch its first astronauts into
space by 2015, in its latest bid to close the gap with China in what many
see as a 21st Century Asian version of the Cold War race for the Moon. 

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will attempt to put two people
into orbit 172 miles (275 km) above the Earth for seven days, according to a
proposal approved by the Planning Commission at a meeting on Friday. 

"ISRO needs to be supported as it has done marvellous job in the field of
Space Science. That's why Planning Commission will support it," Montek Singh
Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, told reporters. 

"An unmanned flight will be launched in 2013-2014 and manned mission likely
to launch by 2014-2015," he said. 

The Cabinet must still sign off on the plan, but that is expected to be a
formality now that the Planning Commission has approved it, S. Satish, a
spokesman for ISRO, told The Times. 

The decision follows ISRO's successful launch in October of India's first
unmanned lunar mission, Chandrayaan-1, which is now orbiting the Moon to
compile a 3-D map of its surface among other things. 

That mission catapulted India into the world's most elite club, rubbing
shoulders with the United States, Russia, Japan and China as the only
countries capable of independently reaching the Moon. 

India's second unmanned lunar mission, Chandrayaan-2, is already scheduled
to be launched in 2011. 

ISRO has also been lobbying for years to secure government funding for its
plans to send an astronaut into space by 2014 - eleven years after China -
and to the Moon by 2020, four years ahead of China's target date. 

Critics say ISRO's plans are a waste of money in a country where the 76 per
cent of the population of 1.1 billion live on less than $2 a day, and child
malnutrition levels are on a par with sub-Saharan Africa. 

But ISRO argues that India makes money from commercial satellite launches,
and scientific research from the space programme has helped to develop its
information technology industry. 

Indian officials, especially in the military, are also concerned that India
lags far behind China, which shot down a satellite in 2007 and completed its
first space walk last year. 

Richard Fischer Jr, a senior fellow on Asian Military Affairs at the
International Assessment and Strategy Centre, said last week that India
needed to review its space programme to confront the military threat from
China. 

"We have to look forward to China performing military activities from the
Moon," he said. 

ISRO's ambitious plans were given a significant boost last week when the
government increased its budget for this year by 27 per cent to 44.6 billion
rupees (£613m). 

Of that, 1.75 billion rupees (£24m) is to be spent on training astronauts
and other space science personnel - representing a 73 percent increase over
last year. 

K Radhakrishnan, a member of India's Space Commission and Director of the
Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, said the budget approved last Friday would
cover development of a new space vehicle. 

"We are planning to put persons in the vehicle and launch them into space
for seven days in an orbit of 275 km," he told reporters. 

ISRO says the vehicle will be launched on a modified version of ISRO's
Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark 2, which is currently under
development and is due to be tested for the first time later this year. 

Russia will help to build the astronaut capsule and select and train the
astronauts under an agreement signed in December on a state visit to India
by Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's President. 

The agreement also stipulates that an Indian astronaut will fly aboard a
Russian Soyuz spacecraft in 2013, making him or her only the second Indian
ever to enter orbit. 

Rakesh Sharma, the first Indian in space, was sent into orbit in 1984 on
board a Soyuz capsule launched by the Soviet Union, which supported India's
space programme throughout the Cold War. 

 

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