One Gaganyaan Astronaut Set To Go To ISS In Collaboration With NASA: Centre

In his written reply, Singh said that NASA ha identified a private organisation -- Axiom Space -- and the Indian Space Research Organisation had signed a Space Flight Agreement with the American firm for the joint mission to ISS.

US President Joe Biden, during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the States last year, had announced that India and the US were collaborating to send an Indian astronaut to the ISS in 2024.

Four astronauts from the Indian Air Force's group of test pilots were picked by India's Astronaut Selection Board for the Gaganyaan mission, India's first human space flight scheduled for take off next year.

"All four astronauts have undergone training on a spaceflight basic module in Russia. Currently, astronauts are undergoing training at ISRO's Astronauts Training Facility (ATF) in Bengaluru for the Gaganyaan Mission," Singh said.

Notably, two of three semesters of the Gaganyatri training programme have been completed, the minister said, adding that independent training simulators and static mockup simulators have been realised.

Meanwhile, on the Gaganyaan mission, Singh said that ground testing of propulsion systems stages including solid, liquid and cryogenic engine, towards human rating of the launch has been completed.

He added that design and realisation of five types of crew escape system solid motors has been completed.

The static testing of all five types of solid motors too has been completed, he said, adding that, the first Test Vehicle mission (TV-D1) for performance validation of crew escape system and parachute deployment has been successfully achieved, news agency PTI reported.

Singh told the Lower House that the ground test programme towards human rating of the Crew Module Propulsion System has been completed and the Service Module Propulsion System test programme is about to be reach completion.

Characterisation of the Thermal Protection System has also been completed, the minister said while providing updates on India's maiden human space flight.

Critical ground facilities such as Orbital Module Preparation Facility (OMPF), Astronaut Training Facility (ATF) and Oxygen Testing Facility have been operationalized and works on the Mission Control Centre (MCC) facilities and establishment of Ground Station networks were nearing completion, Singh said.

Solid and liquid propulsion stages of human-rated launch vehicle is also ready for flight integration and the C-32 cryogenic stage is nearing completion.

Reportedly, the crew module and service module structure realisation has also been completed and flight integration activities were in progress.