How prepared is ISRO to send human into space?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement on Independence Day that India's first human space mission would be launched by 2022 has put the political stamp on a mission that would be the next big ticket endeavour for a space faring nation like India. While India has made a mark for itself with small satellite launches, and attained further credibility with successful missions to the moon and Mars, a human space flight is the ultimate for its space organisation. 

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has been, for the past few years, working on the various technologies that will need to be developed for this mission. K. Radhakrishnan, who was then the ISRO chairperson, had told this correspondent some years ago that these technologies were being developed indigenously, from the annual budget provided to ISRO for research and development. Though the decision to send a human to space is political and needs to be weighed with considerations on what the flight will achieve, and the science it hopes to do, the organisation entrusted with the responsibility has to work in advance to develop all the requirements for this exhilarating, but challenging project. 

In fact, just a few days after the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) was inserted into the Martian orbit, ISRO also successfully tested its Crew Model Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment. The muffin-shaped capsule left the lower earth orbit aboard a GSLV Mk III rocket and in the 19 minute flight, returned neatly into the earth's atmosphere and dropped into the Andaman Sea, where it floated like a cork. This means that the model ISRO is planning is based on the Russian design, and not the erstwhile NASA one, in which the crew capsule was more like an aircraft. 

This July, ISRO performed another successful experiment, the pad abort test, a crucial technology to ensure safety of crew in case the flight develops a snag at take off stage. 

The GSLV III itself was developed as the vehicle for a human mission and has done two flights already, one of which was the crew model experiment. Defence Research Development Organistation (DRDO) has been working on developing the spacesuit. 

The mission, pegged at a cost of Rs 10,000 crore will require training astronauts, which the Indian Air Force is likely to do. 

ISRO chairman K. Sivan says that the 2022 date is doable.