ISRO, Indian Navy announce recovery training plan for Gaganyaan

With India’s plan for a human spaceflight – Gaganyaan mission — going ahead in full steam, the Navy and Indian Space Research Organisation released the Recovery Training Plan for the project.

This document which was released at INS Garuda’s Water Survival Training Facility, Kochi talks about the training plan for the recovery of the Crew Module of the mission.

Going into details, the document outlines and defines the requirements with regard to training of various teams participating in recovery operations. These teams include MARCOS, the Marine commandos, divers, communicators, medical specialists, naval aviators and technicians among others.

Under the Gaganyaan programme, two unmanned and one manned space flight missions are scheduled to be conducted. The latter is scheduled to be launched in the last quarter of 2024 and the astronauts for the flight mission are undergoing training in Bengaluru. The former missions called ‘G1’ and ‘G2’ respectively will take place in the last quarter of 2023 and second quarter of 2024.

The training for the recovery is planned in incremental phases. It commences from the recovery of unmanned to manned projects in both harbour and open sea conditions. The operation for the recovery is led by the Indian Navy assisted by other Government agencies.

The formal handing over of the Crew Module Recovery Model to the Navy at its Kochi facility has already taken place. Simulated mock-ups will be used to make the recovery teams familiar with the operations and train them in it.

Apart from this the Indian Navy will also provide ISRO assistance in undertaking a series of trials to fine tune the Standard Operating Procedures for the recovery.

The document for training was released jointly by Vice Admiral Atul Anand, Director General of Naval Operations; Dr Unnikrishnan Nair, Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre; and Dr Umamaheshwaran R, Director, Human Space Flight Centre, ISRO.