India’s first astronaut, Wing Commander (retd) Rakesh Sharma, has said that the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)’s Gaganyaan mission, slated for launch next year, would bring “a lot of information than initially thought of”.
“Gaganyan mission will happen next year. It would be a flight with an Indian sitting on an India-made launcher that was inaugurated from space port of India - overall an Indian effort”, the legendary astronaut told media persons during an interaction at the three-day Tripura Literature Festival in Agartala on Saturday.
Gaganyaan mission with Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla is set to carry a three-member crew to space and bring them back safely to earth.
“He (Shukla) is one of the astronauts we have selected. He is in Houston and is preparing to fly with SpaceX. I was among the selection team,” Rakesh Sharma said. Shukla is slated to be the first astronaut from India to fly to the International Space Station (ISS).
Asked about astronaut Sunita Williams, who has been stranded for nine months at ISS, Rakesh Sharma said, “During test flights, some problems developed in that particular spacecraft due to which it was felt that it was unsafe for her to return in the same spacecraft. However, a spacecraft of Elon Musk is going to bring her. They are professionals. It’s a personal issue how to accept that as you were planning to return but you couldn’t be due to reasons that are not in your control. So, let her come back and tell what she felt.”
{{/usCountry}}Asked about astronaut Sunita Williams, who has been stranded for nine months at ISS, Rakesh Sharma said, “During test flights, some problems developed in that particular spacecraft due to which it was felt that it was unsafe for her to return in the same spacecraft. However, a spacecraft of Elon Musk is going to bring her. They are professionals. It’s a personal issue how to accept that as you were planning to return but you couldn’t be due to reasons that are not in your control. So, let her come back and tell what she felt.”
{{/usCountry}}Recalling his journey to space, Rakesh Sharma said that he was passionate to see himself as a fighter pilot and he never had aspiration to be an astronaut. He, however, said that he found himself lucky to get the opportunity to become the first from India to have stepped into space in 1984 when the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi decided to send someone from Indian Air Force to space as part of the Soviet Interkosmos programme after experts of ISRO said they were not prepared.
Sharma became the first Indian to go to space aboard the Soviet Union made Soyuz T-11 on April 2 in 1984 that was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic.
A biopic on Sharma called Saara Jahan Se Accha, directed by Mahesh Mathai, is on the floors, however Sharma didn’t speak about the movie.
He stressed on the need to take care of the environment of Earth and the need to concentrate on human existence rather than differences.