sandesh-patil

[sandesh-patil]

Now that India has sent selected candidates from Indian Airforce under the Gaganyaan program to GCTC or Glavcosmos (I assume) which is cosmonaut training center in Russia. India has estimated to launch probably a crew of two to three Vyomanauts (term for Indian Astronauts) in an HAL developed space capsule/crew module mounted on GSLV Mk III (the version of Launch vehicle might change) developed by ISRO, in December 2023. If you see the American and Soviet history of Astronaut selections, during the initial phase of human space flight, NASA and Roscosmos had selected Astronaut candidates from Airforce, Army and Navy (mostly test pilots) considering the risk factors and defence personals are highly trained to tackle relative situations as compared to an officially untrained civilian. Later after further developments in Space flight and considering the growing requirements of building the space stations and conducting various experiments in Space environment, they started hiring Civilian Scientists, Geologists, Biologists, Engineers (mostly Aerospace, Mechanical Electrical and EnTC Engineers), Medical professionals (flight medicine), Mathematicians etc. And trained them accordingly to conduct necessary operations in space (Space walk is one of the crucial and difficult operation carried out in space).

Considering that India is in it's initial stage of Human space flight and has to conduct many experiments to master the flight itself, India has also selected Vyomanauts from IAF. But later when India will have mastered the Human space flight and starts building it's own Space station and conducting various experiments on it as well as other deep space explorations, India will also probably start recruiting Civilians with necessary qualifications in STEM.

So Good luck to all Space enthusiasts in India who dreamt of becoming an Astronaut or I must say Vyomanauts…because the selection procedure is going to be really tough and I don't need to mention about the competition.

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