A catch-up flight in run-up to Gaganyaan

THE Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has nominated one of its four newly trained astronauts, Shubhanshu Shukla, to fly to the International Space Station (ISS). Shukla is in the first batch of four Indians trained in Bengaluru and Russia for India’s maiden human space flight, Gaganyaan. While announcing the decision to send Shukla, the space agency used the word Gaganyatri for astronaut, suggesting a possible connection with the Gaganyaan mission. However, Shukla’s flight to ISS is an altogether different activity, though ISRO says the experience gained from it would help in the Gaganyaan mission.

To see an Indian on a space station four decades after Rakesh Sharma’s space journey would be a moment of national pride.

Ever since humans first landed on the Moon in 1969, most of the human space flights have been to orbiting space stations. Humans fly in spacecraft launched by powerful rockets, dock the spacecraft to a space station, remain there for a few days or weeks, and return to the Earth. The space station era began with the Soviet Salyut and American Skylab in the 1970s. Then came the larger Soviet station, Mir, and finally the ISS jointly built by America, Russia and Europe. China’s Tiangong Space Station has been in the making for a decade now (it takes a long time to assemble a station in space), and India has announced its intention to build its space station by 2035.

To reach a station orbiting around Earth, one needs powerful rockets and robust spacecraft that can transport humans there and bring them back safely. For this, the Soviets developed the Soyuz spacecraft and the Americans the Space Shuttle for almost 30 years. The Shuttle could lift off vertically like a rocket, glide in space like a spacecraft and land horizontally on the earth like an aeroplane. After the Columbia disaster in 2003 — in which Kalpana Chawla perished — the shuttle programme faltered and was ended in 2011. For a few years after this, NASA used the services of the Russian Soyuz for sending supplies to the ISS and rotate the crew there.

For the long term, NASA supported American companies with funds and technology to help them build durable space transportation systems so that it could fully delegate the job of sending cargo and crew missions to ISS to certified private companies. This policy resulted in the emergence of private space players like SpaceX and United Launch Alliance (ULA). After several cargo missions using its Falcon 9 rockets to ISS since 2012, SpaceX launched its first crewed mission in 2020. ULA, too, made several cargo trips to the ISS using its Atlas V rocket. It launched its first crewed module, Starliner, which transported Sunita Williams to ISS in June. It has, however, not been found fit for the return journey due to problems with its thrusters and continues to be docked with the ISS.

For Shukla’s flight to ISS, ISRO has signed a contract with a private company, Axiom Space, which has been categorised by NASA as a ‘full-service mission provider to carry out end-to-end commercial astronaut missions.’ Axiom does not have a rocket or spacecraft and depends on SpaceX for transportation to and from the ISS. Since May 2021, Axiom has executed three commercial missions to ISS. The one with Shukla will be its fourth mission. It is unclear till now if Shukla is going to fly under a commercial agreement between ISRO and Axiom or under a bilateral deal (with or without service charges) with NASA. Rakesh Sharma’s flight to the Salyut station in 1984 was a gesture of friendship from the Soviet Union; India did not have to pay for the ride or the cosmonaut training. Salyut’s successor was the Mir on which Russia hosted 104 cosmonauts and astronauts from 13 countries till it was deorbited in 2001, and many of them were paid rides.

India missed the ISS bus and did not participate in its assembly or send an Indian astronaut to the space station while it was taking shape in the 1990s and 2000s with the participation of leading space agencies. In the 1990s, the relations between ISRO and NASA were at a low ebb because of the cryogenic controversy and the restrictions imposed by the American government due to fear of knowledge transfer. Second, ISRO was more focused on stabilising its operational satellite programmes and lacked additional resources to join an international venture.

By the time a human flight popped up on ISRO’s agenda, the list of visitors to the ISS had considerably grown. In the past 25 years, 280 astronauts from 23 countries have been to ISS with some of them visiting the station two to four times. For instance, the ongoing visit of Sunita Williams is her third to ISS. The US and Russia account for 220 astronauts to ISS, while the rest came from Japan, Canada, Italy, France, Germany, Denmark, the UK, Belgium, Spain, Sweden, Netherlands, Brazil, Israel, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Malaysia, South Africa, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the UAE. The list includes 13 ‘private visitors’ or space tourists. Axiom’s first mission to ISS included four private visitors.

Even when ISRO formally started working on the Gaganyaan mission in 2018, sending an Indian to the ISS was not on the cards. The four astronaut candidates were sent for training at the Yuri Gagarin Space Centre and agreements were signed with Russian agencies for developing other essentials needed for a human space flight. However, the launch deadline set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi — coinciding with the 75th anniversary of Independence in 2022 — was too short to be achieved. A year later, the ISS plan figured in the India-US joint statement during the Prime Minister’s visit to America. It would appear the ISS trip of Shukla is not a necessary building block for Gaganyaan, but more of a catch-up step to gain real-time experience of a space flight in preparation for Gaganyaan. To see an Indian on a space station four decades after Rakesh Sharma’s space journey would indeed be a moment of national pride.