E-Paper
‘Soon, someone from our soil would travel to space’
The Gaganyaan programme aims to demonstrate India’s ability to send humans into low Earth orbit and return them safely.
India still looks “saare jahaan se achcha” (better than the entire world) from space even today, astronaut Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla said on Thursday as he described his recent Axiom-4 mission to the International Space Station, even as the Isro chief revealed critical events in the run-up to the mission, which included a potentially catastrophic fuel leak in SpaceX’s Falcon-9 rocket.
The leak was only detected and fixed because Isro refused vague assurances and demanded full transparency, Isro chief V Narayanan said.
“Isro’s probing forced the company to call off the launch just hours before liftoff. What was later found was no ordinary leak — it was a dangerous crack in the fuel line that could have caused a catastrophic failure mid-flight,” he said.
Narayanan and Shukla were speaking alongside Union minister Jitendra Singh and Group Captain Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair at a press conference held at the National Media Centre.
The upcoming Gaganyaan mission was also spoken about, with the Isro chief announcing that the mission could be launched by December this year. Shukla too said that India will “very soon” send a person to space from its own rocket and soil, as part of the Gaganyaan mission.
The Isro chief announced that the first uncrewed Gaganyaan mission, G1, “is going to be lifted off this year-end, maybe close to December.” “And in that, Vyommitra, a half-humanoid, is going to fly,” he said.
Union minister Singh said that India’s space programme is now operating on global parameters. “Now, our benchmarks are global benchmarks, our strategies are global, and the parameters that we are seeking to live up to are global,” he said.
The Gaganyaan programme aims to demonstrate India’s ability to send humans into low Earth orbit and return them safely. The mission is seen as a step toward establishing a national space station and India’s plan for a lunar landing by 2040.
“All the information I have collected in the past year will be extremely useful to us for our own missions — Gaganyaan and Bharatiya Antariksh Station. Very soon, we shall send someone from our capsule, from our rocket and our soil,” said Shukla.
On the fuel leak, Narayanan said Isro had asked SpaceX for test results after suspicious oxygen sensor data appeared, but the answers were evasive.
“They told us committees have cleared it. Probably they thought it’s a minor leakage. But when we asked where the leak was, they said they couldn’t find it. When we asked the leak rate, they said it’s confidential. Out of 14 questions, only 2 were answered,” he said.
Unconvinced, Isro insisted on corrective action, and the pressure worked. SpaceX was forced to scrub the launch on November 11 at 5.15 pm. When engineers finally investigated, they found the crack. “If the rocket gave way, it was a catastrophe situation, nothing else,” Narayanan said.
‘ISS mission perfect example of international collaboration’
At the press conference, Shukla described his last venture to space.
“No matter how much training you have done, even after that, when you sit in the rocket and the engines ignite, when they catch fire, I think it is a very different feeling,” he told the audience in the auditorium which was packed to the brim. Outside the building, people gathered on roads, hoping to catch a glimpse of the astronaut.
“We flew on top of the Falcon 9 vehicle in the Crew Dragon to the International Space Station for a period of two weeks and then returned. The launch was from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and recovery was off the coast of San Diego in the Pacific Ocean. Crew Dragon is one of the three vehicles that can currently take humans to space,” he said.
“I had not imagined how it would feel, and I was actually running behind the rocket for the first few seconds, and it took me some time to catch up to it. From that moment until the time we splashed down, the experience was unbelievable. It was so exciting and so amazing that I have really been struggling to find words to convey it to you, so that you can live that experience through my words,” he added.
The International Space Station was “a perfect example of international collaboration” and said the knowledge from human spaceflight would be valuable for Gaganyaan. “Witnessing and executing human spaceflight offers knowledge and information that goes much beyond and deeper—it’s very valuable for our Gaganyaan mission,” he said.
Shukla also thanked the government, Isro, and the people of the country for the support as he dedicated the success to the nation. “I truly felt that this was a mission for the entire nation.”
Nair, who is also part of the Gaganyaan crew, said, “A few months from now, we are going to have Diwali. That is the time when Ram ji entered Ayodhya. Over here right now, if I can call myself Lakshman... even though I am older than ‘Shuks’ (Shukla), I would love to be Lakshman to this Ram any day. But let’s remember Ram and Lakshman got a lot of help from the entire ‘vanar sena’, that is our fantastic Isro team... otherwise it would not have been possible.”
