New Delhi: Astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla will be in space for 14 days, but he will still get a taste of home. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will be sending a range of delicacies during the upcoming mission, including moong dal halwa, aam ras (mango nectar), and different varieties of rice to satisfy his Indian taste buds.
At a press briefing Tuesday, D.K. Singh, director of ISRO’s Human Spaceflight Centre (HSFC), said that the US’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has a set food menu for astronauts, which is followed for all their space missions.
However, since India will be sending its first astronaut to the International Space Station (ISS) on the 14-day Axiom-4 Mission, ISRO will be sending some India-specific food items to remind Shukla of home. The mission will be launched on 29 May.
“We will be sending moong dal halwa, mango nectar and a few rice options for this mission. These options will also be included for the Gaganyaan crewed mission, along with a few more additions,” Singh said.
Experimenting with space food
Scientists from ISRO and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) have been experimenting on space food options for Gaganyaan crewed mission—India’s first human spaceflight—which is now expected to take flight by 2027.
DRDO’s Mysore-based Defence Food Research Laboratory (DFRL) has brought out space food options, including ready-to-eat upma, idli, biryani, pulao, dal, vegetable curry, roti and halwa.
The food packs, designed for space travel, will require reconstitution with water within the controlled space environments. The institute has also been working on special packaging options to make food consumption in zero-gravity convenient.
“We have developed a few options. Even if all of it isn’t used for the Gaganyaan mission, it will come in handy for future human spaceflights,” Singh told ThePrint.
For international missions, NASA’s Space Food Systems Laboratory produces freeze-dried food and packages commercially available beverage powders, cookies, candies, and other dried goods that the astronauts select for their menus.
The Axiom-4 mission
Last year, ISRO’s Human Space Flight Centre entered into a Space Flight Agreement with the NASA-identified service provider, Axiom Space, for its upcoming Axiom-4 Mission to the ISS.
For the 14-day mission, Shukla, who is the pilot, will accompany Peggy Whitson of the US, the mission commander, and mission specialists Slawosz Uznanski (Poland) and Tibor Kapu (Hungary).
The space agency said the mission will “realise the return” to human spaceflight for India, Poland and Hungary, with each nation’s first government-sponsored flight in more than 40 years.
Shukla will be the second Indian to fly into space after Rakesh Sharma in 1984. He will create history by becoming the first to fly to the ISS.
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
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