New Delhi: Indian Air Force Group Captain Ajit Krishnan, one of the four astronaut-designates for human spaceflight mission Gaganyaan, has been asked to join his team at the IAF amid escalating tensions with Pakistan after Operation Sindoor.
He was in Delhi for an international space conference and was scheduled to be in the national capital till Friday.
“I have been called back by the IAF. You know, because of the current situation,” Krishnan told ThePrint Wednesday. The officer said he is leaving Delhi early Thursday to join his team.
Krishnan and his colleague Angad Pratap are among the four IAF officers undergoing training for the Gaganyaan mission which is now expected to take flight in 2027. The other two astronauts, Shubhanshu Shukla and Prasanth B Nair, are currently training in the US for the upcoming Axiom-4 Mission, slated for launch on May 29.
Group Captain Krishnan was commissioned in 2003 and is a flying instructor and a test pilot with approximately 2,900 hours of flying experience. He has flown aircraft such as Su-30 MKI, MiG-21, MiG-29, Jaguar, Dornier and An-32.
The Gaganyaan mission is set to launch a crew of three to low Earth orbit at a distance of nearly 400 km from the ground for a three-day mission and then bring them back safely.
Also read: Making of 4 astronauts for Gaganyaan — rigorous training, medical & fitness tests, survival tasks
The training
Dressed in blue overalls, Krishnan said his training for the Gaganyaan crewed mission is likely to go on till the mission actually takes off.
“The training is never truly done, right? You keep learning and you keep getting better,” he told ThePrint as he smilingly obliged requests of photos and selfies from students and admirers.
He added that after coming back from his first round of training in Russia’s Moscow, the astronauts started working with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to set up an astronaut training centre in Bengaluru, for future human spaceflights.
“We were able to help the ISRO after the training we received from Moscow,” Krishnan said.
Pratap, unlike Krishnan, will stay in Delhi till the programme ends Friday. He said his vision for India’s space mission is to open up the sector for the common people. “There is a lot of secrecy around space at the moment. It needs to open up,” Pratap said. “Every man should be able to experience space travel.”
The mission
Senior ISRO scientists said the space agency has made significant progress towards launching the uncrewed Gaganyaan mission. At least one test flight will be sent before the three Indian astronauts take off.
Before the crewed mission in 2027, the ISRO is planning to launch two uncrewed missions, the first of which is expected to fly with a female humanoid robot Vyomitra later this year.
The test flights will help ensure the systems are ready for the safe travel and return of the astronauts.
“Ninety percent of the work is already finished. We are working on the final leg of the mission,” Narayanan told a press briefing Tuesday.
In 2023, the ISRO completed a key test in collaboration with the Indian Coast Guard, recovering the crew module from the turbulent seas of the Bay of Bengal. The launch vehicle, LVM3-X, lifted a crew module model, weighing 3,775 kg, to a suborbital altitude of 126 km.
The module’s thrusters helped control it, orienting the module and ensuring its safe re-entry. “The crew module descended using parachutes to have a smooth splashdown at the designated location,” an ISRO document read.
The tension building up between India and Pakistan after the 22 April terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam ratcheted up multiple notches Wednesday as India carried out precision airstrikes across the border, dismantling terror infrastructure. Pakistan has said it will respond to the attacks.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
Also Read: Gaganyaan crewed mission delayed again, likely to take flight in 2027