Equipment for Gaganyaan astronauts: ISRO in talks with CNES

ISRO and CNES are collaborating in the production of space-equipment. (Courtesy: CGTN)

Highlights

Space equipment alike to that of Thomas Pesquet, will be made for Gaganyaan Mission astronauts.
A CNES official confirmed that discussions regarding equipment are in the final stage.
Indian Space surgeons will be sent to France possibly in 2021, an ISRO official added.

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and the Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES) of France have been collaborating on mission Gaganyaan, particularly in designing essential space equipment for the astronauts.

The model will be based on French astronaut, Thomas Pesquet's equipment as in the Alpha Mission, which is essentially the return of Pesquet, as a part of the European Space Agency (ESA), to International Space Station aboard SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft in 2021.

Pesquet is currently training with Crew Dragon spacecraft and station simulators for Mission Alpha. The name of the mission was shortlisted from a whooping 27,000 entries after a competition organized by ESA in association with CNES, the name came up 47 times in the entries received. Hence, Pesquet's mission got it's name - Mission Alpha. He spent six months on ISS between November 2016 and June 2017.

About Rs 10,000 crore is the cost of the collaboration between the two space agencies for Gaganyaan mission which would be carrying three Indian astronauts to space. Last year, in 2019, flight surgeon Brigitte Godard, who was then a part of CNES, had arrived in India to train physicians and engineers. Back in France, they already have a well established program for space medicine. It also has MEDES Space Clinic where space surgeons undergo training.

Both ISRO and CNES officials gave rough outlines regarding the progress and insights of this collaboration:

CNES - “Discussions are in the final stage. An announcement is likely to be made soon. Work on the instrumentation for Mission Alpha is on”

ISRO - “The Indian space surgeons will also go to France next year once the corona-virus situation eases”

The objective of Gaganyaan mission is to send Indian astronauts to space by 2022. Since 2018, the space agencies of India and France have been cooperating to turn this dream into reality.

The Chairman of ISRO, Dr. K. Sivan and CNES president, Jean Yves Le Gall signed an agreement on September 6, 2018 at the sixth edition of Bengaluru Space Expo, to give momentum to the ambitious Gaganyaan mission.

According to the deal, the two space agencies will conduct experiments and share their expertise on the areas of astronaut health monitoring, space medicine, life support, radiation protection, space debris protection and personal hygiene systems, all of which will be performed with the help of space hospital facilities in Toulouse, France.

Dr. K. Sivan and Jean Yves Le Gall at the 2018 Bengaluru Space Expo.
(Credit:Deccan Herald)

Indigenous spacesuit displayed at 2018 Bengaluru Space Expo.
(Credit: Anonymous)

As per the agreement, India's potential astronauts can now be trained at specialized centres, such as CADMOS for performing experiments in micro-gravity, to understand any phenomena that would otherwise be largely affected by Earth's gravitational attraction. The candidates also get to know about space medicine and treatment, courtesy goes to the French institute for space medicine, MEDES.

' CADMOS was created as a CNES department charged with performing and promoting all the activities linked to human spaceflight and micro-gravity science. CADMOS activities started with three nominal flights on-board of the Russian Space Station MIR and continued on-board of the US space shuttle. ' Read more (PDF)

As a test procedure, an unmanned flight was scheduled to launch this year with a humanoid, Vyommitra, on-board, but due to the pandemic, it had to be rescheduled.

The four Indian air-force pilots, and prospective astronauts, are currently undergoing training in Russia. Due to the pandemic, the training was temporarily stopped. Russian space corporation, Roscosmos in a statement said, "Gagarin Research & Test Cosmonaut Training Center (GCTC) on May 12 resumed training of the Indian cosmonauts under the contract between Glavkosmos, JSC (part of the State Space Corporation Roscosmos) and the Human Spaceflight Center of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)." Read more

The two space agencies, ISRO and CNES, have expressed their interest in future collaboration on projects on Mars, Venus and asteroids.