Bangalore (PTI): India's much awaited mission to space, planned to be launched in 2015, may not be a 'manned' one as ISRO is not sure whether it would be a man or a woman who will have the privilege of being an astronaut for this ambitious programme.
Faced with the dilemma, ISRO has now renamed its mega venture, costing around Rs 10,000 crore, as 'Indian human space flight', which ISRO officials hope would satisfy die-hard feminists!
The Bangalore-based space agency has completed the project report that has clearly spelt out the roadmap.
"It (the flight) is expected to be approved by the Union Cabinet in a month or two. As it's also a matter of pride (for the nation), we see no hurdle in its clearance", an ISRO official said.
"ISRO's annual budget is around Rs 4,000 crore. An additional Rs 10,000 crore spread over five-six years is not a big issue", the official said.
But the task before ISRO, which carried out studies for more than five years to examine the technological challenges of such a mission and the Indian capability to undertake it, is not so simple.
The objective of the 'Indian human space flight' is to develop a space vehicle to carry a crew of two to low earth orbit and return safely to a pre-determined destination. The duration of the proposed mission is about a week.
There will be provision for emergency mission abort and crew rescue.
The main task before ISRO is "man-rating" of indigenously built Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), which would launch an autonomous orbital mission vehicle. "The reliability of GSLV is 90 per cent. Man-rating means its reliability should be 99.99 per cent", the official said.
Then facilities will have be established to train astronauts, besides designing of crew module.
In January last year, ISRO demonstrated India's capability in important technologies such as aero-thermo structures, deceleration and floatation systems, navigation, guidance and control, with the successful launch, in-orbit operation, re-entry and recovery of SRE-1 (space capsule recovery experiment).
