India Human Spaceflight Funded Through Unmanned Trials
Programs Aerospace Daily & Defense Report Mar 31 , 2010 , p. 06 Frank Morring, Jr. Neelam Mathews BENGALURU, India — India’s human spaceflight program is funded for a four-year development-and-trial effort that will build and fly an unmanned capsule to test its crew environmental control and life-support system (ECLSS) and launch-escape system, says K. Radhakrisnan, the new chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). If that work goes well, ISRO will seek funding to press on to human tests of the vehicle on the upgraded Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV Mark III) now in development. Although the 2.5-meter-dia. capsule is being designed for three crewmembers, initial manned flights will carry two astronauts. “We will first make this unit with an ECLSS system, and will have a few unmanned flights of this module before we actually put a human being inside, initially monitoring the conditions,” Radhakrishnan told Aviation Week March 30 in an intervi...