Some interesting details on Manned mission
Who Says It's a Picnic Up There?
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...Its-a-Picnic-Up-There/articleshow/5083741.cms
We don't know who the lucky two to fly in Isro's first manned mission to space in 2015 will be, but we have a fair idea of what life aboard the spacecraft will be as it orbits the earth for a week at an altitude of 274 km.
"Saare jahan se achcha," beamed India's first cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma, peeping out of the Russian Salyut space station in 1984, when then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi asked him what India looked like from space. Our cosmonauts of 2015 will not be able to float around inside a space station; they will have to stay strapped to their seats in the orbital vehicle.
This is a quasi-conical structure with a base of diameter 2.8 metres, so it's less than the size of a nine-sq-foot room with walls tapering towards the roof. "There isn't much space, but it's enough for two to be seated comfortably. They can unclasp their seat belts and float in microgravity a bit," says Isro chairman G Madhavan Nair.
There will be a cylindrical service module below, but our cosmonauts will be mostly confined to the conical space above, busy with a wide range of scientific experiments. This means they will not be able to do physical exercises during their short stay out there. Space travellers consider daily exercise as crucial as food. In March this year, Gennady Padalka, the 50-year-old Russian cosmonaut in the International Space Station complained that his US counterparts were denying him access to the exercise bike. Our guys could follow in the asanas of Rakesh Sharma. "I did yoga, while the others worked out on the treadmill. The station had designated areas for dining, working and sanitation," says Sharma.
Rakesh, who took off in the Soyuz-T 11 capsule with two Russian cosmonauts from Baikonur in Kazakhstan on April 3, 1984, says though there was just six inches of space between them while seated, they had enough room in the 50-metre-long Salyut space station to which the capsule was docked.
They may be constantly facing an array of consoles and computers, but that doesn't mean our 2015 cosmonauts will be totally deprived of the spectacular view. "They can look out through circular windows of 20 cm diameter," says Nair.
And there's more on their plate too. The Defence Food Research Laboratory (DFRL), Mysore, is ready with a menu of more than a dozen items "From pulav to chicken dishes and kheer, we have a good spread. Depending on the taste and preference of the cosmonaut, we can deliver new items with six months' notice," says DFRL director A S Bawa.
Though new methods have been developed to allow space travellers to use knives, forks and spoons, most space food prepared by DFRL has to be mixed with water and sucked through a straw. The challenge in preparing space food is to pack it with nutrients while keeping the volume down.
Sanitation is an area that Isro, along with other labs, is still working on. Because of space constraints, it is unlikely that the cosmonauts would have a separate washroom. "We cannot throw human waste out into the space. It has to be stored within the capsule without affecting the high standard of hygiene," says Nair.
What about entertainment? "There's not much scope for anything other than work when you are in space for only a week," says Sharma. Nair says they will have to be content with playing computer games when they have time. In vacuum conditions, the cosmonauts will have to use microphones and headphones to talk to each other, even though they are seated only inches apart.
The orbital vehicle is an improvisation of the capsule used by Isro for the Space Capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE) in January 2007. SRE, launched from Sriharikota by PSLV-C 7 on January 10, 2007 had returned to earth, splashing down in the Bay of Bengal, 12 days later. That was the first time Isro proved its re-entry capability, to bring back a launched capsule back from space to earth. While SRE weighed 600 kg and had a base diameter of 2 metres, the orbital vehicle will weigh three tonnes.
"The bigger the size of the capsule, the bigger the challenge," explains Nair. "We have to keep the size to an optimum to ensure basic comforts while conforming to a system that protects humans on board from radiation." A bigger size demands greater protection against the high temperatures produced by friction as the vehicle comes hurtling down after re-entering the earth's atmosphere.
Taking the orbital vehicle to space will be India's own 49-metre-tall , three-stage Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), which was launched successfully four out of five times. "There won't be any changes to the GSLV body, but we will make some alterations to the electronics to secure them further. We are working on quadruple redundancies. If one coil in the activator fails, another should take over. We've started work," says K Radhakrishanan , director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre . Among the improvisations would be a crew escape system that would separate from the GSLV and splash back into sea in case the mission has to be aborted soon after lift-off .
While the launch will be similar to any other GSLV rocket, the landing will mimic NASA spacecraft that touch down like an airplane. The capsule carrying the cosmonauts, on re-entry , will be parachuted down. That touch down will send India soaring into a new galaxy of space-faring nations.
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ISRO Scientists Vs Indian Air force Pilots
Gimme Space: Dogfight over the hot seat - Science - NEWS - The Times of India
IAF pilots and Isro scientists make for unlikely adversaries . But there's a secret war going on between them over who should get right of passage as India prepares to fire off its Rs 12,400-crore manned space mission. The project, steadily taking shape at various Isro (Indian Space Research Organisation) units throughout the country, has both IAF personnel and scientists claiming they are best qualified to man the initial flight from Sriharikota, tentatively planned for 2015-2017 .
Though the controversy has not yet become public, it is learnt that both groups are claiming space to be their natural domain. It all began when Isro chairman G Madhavan Nair announced on August 9, 2007, that the agency was seriously considering a human space flight mission. This came exactly a year after about 80 scientists at a meeting in Bangalore, attended among others by the country's first cosmonaut, Rakesh Sharma, said India would have to launch a manned spacecraft if it had to assert itself as a global space power.
For Sharma, part of the joint Indo-Soviet manned space mission in April 1984, the debate is a non-starter . Convinced that there should be an IAF crew on board, he said in a recent interview to TOI, "Till the various systems and technologies in the spacecraft are proven and validated, the mission should be flown only by air force test pilots since they are experienced in evaluating systems" .
Told that two Isro engineers , P Radhakrishnan and Nagapathi C Bhatt, and not pilots had been chosen to fly in Nasa's 1986 space shuttle, Sharma explained that the shuttle's technologies had already been established .
"Please remember that John Young, who was a part of the two man crew which flew the first space shuttle, 'Columbia' , on April 12, 1981, was an air force test pilot. So, considering all this, I have absolutely no doubt that India's maiden human space flight should be operated by IAF. After all systems are validated, an Isro team can take over." Yuri Gagarin, the first man to fly to space on April 12, 1961, was also an air force pilot.
The book, 'Indo-Soviet Joint Space Odyssey' , published by the space cell of Air Headquarters in New Delhi, echoes Sharma's sentiment. According to this book, an aviator is considered the most eminently suitable person for space experiments. "This is only natural since space is a projection of air and one starts flying in the air before graduating into space," the book says.
But Isro, with its huge string of achievements, does not readily buy this. The main thrust of its counter-argument is that its scientists and engineers will have no difficulty in learning to make the ambitious flight. A top space agency official, declining to be identified, pointed out that since the spacecraft carrying humans will be designed and made by Isro there is no reason why its own scientists and engineers cannot fly in it. "I am convinced that our team will have no difficulty in testing the spacecraft's systems in space. Why should it always be air force test pilots?" he said, citing Bhatt and Radhakrishnan as honourable examples . It's a different matter, though, that the mission had to be aborted in the wake of the 'Challenger' disaster on Janu ary 28, 1986, that killed all the seven crew members.
Interestingly, within Isro itself there are two schools of thought on who exactly should first fly into space from Sri harikota. And the person in favour of the IAF is, rather ironically, none other than Bhatt himself. "Since it will be the first manned mission of its kind taking off from India, it has to attain a level of perfection. Keeping this in view, cooperation with the IAF will be necessary," he said.
Bhatt, who is with Isro's Satellite Centre in Bangalore, said if more manned flights from India are scheduled they can be handled exclusively by Isro. "But, for the first flight, IAF certainly has to play an important role," he said. "I would be happy to go to space if I meet all the criteria.''
Sharing the opinion of Bhatt, his shuttle colleague Radhakrishnan said, "All initial space flights in the US, Russia and China were handled by air force test pilots. Remember the spacecraft has to be taken up and brought down, and this certainly calls for piloting skills. I do agree with Rakesh Sharma.''
Clearing the air, Radhakrishnan recalled that he was chosen for the space shuttle mission as a payload specialist something that does not require flying experience. "As of now, I do not think Isro has pilots and in the interest of safety a spacecraft cannot be flown by amateurs. When I say amateurs, I mean those who do not fly," he said.
Isro, meanwhile, is awaiting a formal nod for the mission from the Union cabinet. It has already been approved by the Planning Commission, which in February 2009 said a budget of Rs 5,000 crore would be required for the initial work. The Centre has also allocated a sum of Rs 50 crore for what Isro calls "pre-project initiatives'' for the year 2007-2008 . A report related to this programme has, in turn, been cleared by the space commission.
In anticipation of the Cabinet's green signal, Isro has begun preliminary design work for the three-tonne orbital vehicle that will carry a two-member crew into the low earth orbit for seven days at an altitude of 275 km. It will be carried by the three-stage Geo Synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV).
About 16 minutes after lift-off from Sriharikota, the GSLV will place the vehicle in orbit. Trials for the mission began with the 600-kg Space Capsule Recovery Experiment launched by the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle on January 10, 2007. The capsule re-entered and splashed into the Bay of Bengal on January 22, 2007.
India is expected to receive assistance in crew selection and training from Russia under an agreement signed between the two countries in March 2008. One option being considered is sending an Indian astronaut abroad a Soyuz capsule by 2012 in preparation for the indigenous experiment . There is a lot attached to India's manned flight to space as it is being seen as the precursor to a possible human mission to the moon around 2020.
But as a scientist said, "In the end, it is not who gets to fly to space, but how and when India does it that will matter most.'' The debate between pilots and scientists can rage on till then.
Who Says It's a Picnic Up There?
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...Its-a-Picnic-Up-There/articleshow/5083741.cms
We don't know who the lucky two to fly in Isro's first manned mission to space in 2015 will be, but we have a fair idea of what life aboard the spacecraft will be as it orbits the earth for a week at an altitude of 274 km.
"Saare jahan se achcha," beamed India's first cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma, peeping out of the Russian Salyut space station in 1984, when then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi asked him what India looked like from space. Our cosmonauts of 2015 will not be able to float around inside a space station; they will have to stay strapped to their seats in the orbital vehicle.
This is a quasi-conical structure with a base of diameter 2.8 metres, so it's less than the size of a nine-sq-foot room with walls tapering towards the roof. "There isn't much space, but it's enough for two to be seated comfortably. They can unclasp their seat belts and float in microgravity a bit," says Isro chairman G Madhavan Nair.
There will be a cylindrical service module below, but our cosmonauts will be mostly confined to the conical space above, busy with a wide range of scientific experiments. This means they will not be able to do physical exercises during their short stay out there. Space travellers consider daily exercise as crucial as food. In March this year, Gennady Padalka, the 50-year-old Russian cosmonaut in the International Space Station complained that his US counterparts were denying him access to the exercise bike. Our guys could follow in the asanas of Rakesh Sharma. "I did yoga, while the others worked out on the treadmill. The station had designated areas for dining, working and sanitation," says Sharma.
Rakesh, who took off in the Soyuz-T 11 capsule with two Russian cosmonauts from Baikonur in Kazakhstan on April 3, 1984, says though there was just six inches of space between them while seated, they had enough room in the 50-metre-long Salyut space station to which the capsule was docked.
They may be constantly facing an array of consoles and computers, but that doesn't mean our 2015 cosmonauts will be totally deprived of the spectacular view. "They can look out through circular windows of 20 cm diameter," says Nair.
And there's more on their plate too. The Defence Food Research Laboratory (DFRL), Mysore, is ready with a menu of more than a dozen items "From pulav to chicken dishes and kheer, we have a good spread. Depending on the taste and preference of the cosmonaut, we can deliver new items with six months' notice," says DFRL director A S Bawa.
Though new methods have been developed to allow space travellers to use knives, forks and spoons, most space food prepared by DFRL has to be mixed with water and sucked through a straw. The challenge in preparing space food is to pack it with nutrients while keeping the volume down.
Sanitation is an area that Isro, along with other labs, is still working on. Because of space constraints, it is unlikely that the cosmonauts would have a separate washroom. "We cannot throw human waste out into the space. It has to be stored within the capsule without affecting the high standard of hygiene," says Nair.
What about entertainment? "There's not much scope for anything other than work when you are in space for only a week," says Sharma. Nair says they will have to be content with playing computer games when they have time. In vacuum conditions, the cosmonauts will have to use microphones and headphones to talk to each other, even though they are seated only inches apart.
The orbital vehicle is an improvisation of the capsule used by Isro for the Space Capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE) in January 2007. SRE, launched from Sriharikota by PSLV-C 7 on January 10, 2007 had returned to earth, splashing down in the Bay of Bengal, 12 days later. That was the first time Isro proved its re-entry capability, to bring back a launched capsule back from space to earth. While SRE weighed 600 kg and had a base diameter of 2 metres, the orbital vehicle will weigh three tonnes.
"The bigger the size of the capsule, the bigger the challenge," explains Nair. "We have to keep the size to an optimum to ensure basic comforts while conforming to a system that protects humans on board from radiation." A bigger size demands greater protection against the high temperatures produced by friction as the vehicle comes hurtling down after re-entering the earth's atmosphere.
Taking the orbital vehicle to space will be India's own 49-metre-tall , three-stage Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), which was launched successfully four out of five times. "There won't be any changes to the GSLV body, but we will make some alterations to the electronics to secure them further. We are working on quadruple redundancies. If one coil in the activator fails, another should take over. We've started work," says K Radhakrishanan , director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre . Among the improvisations would be a crew escape system that would separate from the GSLV and splash back into sea in case the mission has to be aborted soon after lift-off .
While the launch will be similar to any other GSLV rocket, the landing will mimic NASA spacecraft that touch down like an airplane. The capsule carrying the cosmonauts, on re-entry , will be parachuted down. That touch down will send India soaring into a new galaxy of space-faring nations.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
ISRO Scientists Vs Indian Air force Pilots
Gimme Space: Dogfight over the hot seat - Science - NEWS - The Times of India
IAF pilots and Isro scientists make for unlikely adversaries . But there's a secret war going on between them over who should get right of passage as India prepares to fire off its Rs 12,400-crore manned space mission. The project, steadily taking shape at various Isro (Indian Space Research Organisation) units throughout the country, has both IAF personnel and scientists claiming they are best qualified to man the initial flight from Sriharikota, tentatively planned for 2015-2017 .
Though the controversy has not yet become public, it is learnt that both groups are claiming space to be their natural domain. It all began when Isro chairman G Madhavan Nair announced on August 9, 2007, that the agency was seriously considering a human space flight mission. This came exactly a year after about 80 scientists at a meeting in Bangalore, attended among others by the country's first cosmonaut, Rakesh Sharma, said India would have to launch a manned spacecraft if it had to assert itself as a global space power.
For Sharma, part of the joint Indo-Soviet manned space mission in April 1984, the debate is a non-starter . Convinced that there should be an IAF crew on board, he said in a recent interview to TOI, "Till the various systems and technologies in the spacecraft are proven and validated, the mission should be flown only by air force test pilots since they are experienced in evaluating systems" .
Told that two Isro engineers , P Radhakrishnan and Nagapathi C Bhatt, and not pilots had been chosen to fly in Nasa's 1986 space shuttle, Sharma explained that the shuttle's technologies had already been established .
"Please remember that John Young, who was a part of the two man crew which flew the first space shuttle, 'Columbia' , on April 12, 1981, was an air force test pilot. So, considering all this, I have absolutely no doubt that India's maiden human space flight should be operated by IAF. After all systems are validated, an Isro team can take over." Yuri Gagarin, the first man to fly to space on April 12, 1961, was also an air force pilot.
The book, 'Indo-Soviet Joint Space Odyssey' , published by the space cell of Air Headquarters in New Delhi, echoes Sharma's sentiment. According to this book, an aviator is considered the most eminently suitable person for space experiments. "This is only natural since space is a projection of air and one starts flying in the air before graduating into space," the book says.
But Isro, with its huge string of achievements, does not readily buy this. The main thrust of its counter-argument is that its scientists and engineers will have no difficulty in learning to make the ambitious flight. A top space agency official, declining to be identified, pointed out that since the spacecraft carrying humans will be designed and made by Isro there is no reason why its own scientists and engineers cannot fly in it. "I am convinced that our team will have no difficulty in testing the spacecraft's systems in space. Why should it always be air force test pilots?" he said, citing Bhatt and Radhakrishnan as honourable examples . It's a different matter, though, that the mission had to be aborted in the wake of the 'Challenger' disaster on Janu ary 28, 1986, that killed all the seven crew members.
Interestingly, within Isro itself there are two schools of thought on who exactly should first fly into space from Sri harikota. And the person in favour of the IAF is, rather ironically, none other than Bhatt himself. "Since it will be the first manned mission of its kind taking off from India, it has to attain a level of perfection. Keeping this in view, cooperation with the IAF will be necessary," he said.
Bhatt, who is with Isro's Satellite Centre in Bangalore, said if more manned flights from India are scheduled they can be handled exclusively by Isro. "But, for the first flight, IAF certainly has to play an important role," he said. "I would be happy to go to space if I meet all the criteria.''
Sharing the opinion of Bhatt, his shuttle colleague Radhakrishnan said, "All initial space flights in the US, Russia and China were handled by air force test pilots. Remember the spacecraft has to be taken up and brought down, and this certainly calls for piloting skills. I do agree with Rakesh Sharma.''
Clearing the air, Radhakrishnan recalled that he was chosen for the space shuttle mission as a payload specialist something that does not require flying experience. "As of now, I do not think Isro has pilots and in the interest of safety a spacecraft cannot be flown by amateurs. When I say amateurs, I mean those who do not fly," he said.
Isro, meanwhile, is awaiting a formal nod for the mission from the Union cabinet. It has already been approved by the Planning Commission, which in February 2009 said a budget of Rs 5,000 crore would be required for the initial work. The Centre has also allocated a sum of Rs 50 crore for what Isro calls "pre-project initiatives'' for the year 2007-2008 . A report related to this programme has, in turn, been cleared by the space commission.
In anticipation of the Cabinet's green signal, Isro has begun preliminary design work for the three-tonne orbital vehicle that will carry a two-member crew into the low earth orbit for seven days at an altitude of 275 km. It will be carried by the three-stage Geo Synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV).
About 16 minutes after lift-off from Sriharikota, the GSLV will place the vehicle in orbit. Trials for the mission began with the 600-kg Space Capsule Recovery Experiment launched by the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle on January 10, 2007. The capsule re-entered and splashed into the Bay of Bengal on January 22, 2007.
India is expected to receive assistance in crew selection and training from Russia under an agreement signed between the two countries in March 2008. One option being considered is sending an Indian astronaut abroad a Soyuz capsule by 2012 in preparation for the indigenous experiment . There is a lot attached to India's manned flight to space as it is being seen as the precursor to a possible human mission to the moon around 2020.
But as a scientist said, "In the end, it is not who gets to fly to space, but how and when India does it that will matter most.'' The debate between pilots and scientists can rage on till then.