Gaganyan crew module undergoing survival and recovery test at Water Survival Test Facility (WSTF) of the Indian Navy |
Gaganyaan (Sanskrit IAST: gagan-yāna, transl. "Space Craft") is an Indian crewed orbital spacecraft intended to be the formative spacecraft of the Indian Human Spaceflight Programme. The spacecraft is being designed to carry three people, and a planned upgraded version will be equipped with rendezvous and docking capability. In its maiden crewed mission, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)'s largely autonomous 5.3 metric tonnes capsule will orbit the Earth at 400 km altitude for up to seven days with a two or three-person crew on board. The first crewed mission was originally planned to be launched on ISRO's LVM3 in December 2021, but this has since been delayed due to lockdown to no earlier than 2024.
This Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) manufactured crew module had its first un-crewed experimental flight on 18 December 2014. , design of the crew module has been completed. Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) will provide support for critical human-centric systems and technologies like space-grade food, crew healthcare, radiation measurement and protection, parachutes for the safe recovery of the crew module, and fire suppression system.
Glynn S. Lunney (November 27, 1936 – March 19, 2021) was an American
NASA engineer. An employee of NASA since its foundation in 1958, Lunney was a
flight director during the
Gemini and
Apollo programs, and was on duty during historic events such as the
Apollo 11 lunar ascent and the pivotal hours of the
Apollo 13 crisis. At the end of the Apollo program, he became manager of the
Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the first collaboration in spaceflight between the United States and the
Soviet Union. Later, he served as manager of the
Space Shuttle program before leaving NASA in 1985 and later becoming a Vice President of the
United Space Alliance.
Lunney was a key figure in America's manned space program from Project Mercury through the coming of the Space Shuttle. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the National Space Trophy, which he was given by the Rotary Club in 2005. Chris Kraft, NASA's first flight director, described Lunney as "a true hero of the space age", saying that he was "one of the outstanding contributors to the exploration of space of the last four decades".
