Indo-Russian Soyuz mission confirmed?

A year ago the media was abuzz with talks of Indian astronauts going into space on the Russian Soyuz as a precursor to Indian manned mission. Both the sides confirmed that talks were on for collaborative mission. But, Russia later announced that they wouldn't able to accommodate Indian astronauts as there weren't any spare Soyuz and all that were there would be used to transport crew to the ISS.

Surprisingly, today there was a report that Indian astronauts would go to space in a Soyuz in 2015. There is much interest in this news due to person the comment came from and that even Roscosmos had this bit of news on it's website for confirmation.

An Indian cosmonaut will first go on a Russian space mission in 2015, prior to the Indian manned mission in 2017, Alexey M Mzareulov, deputy consul-general of the Russian Federation, announced. He made the announcement at the 50th anniversary celebrations of the first human space flight by Yuri Gagarin, organized by the Russian Centre for Science & Culture, which saw many American diplomats.

Link: India-Russia Space Mission May Occur in 2015

It's important to note that Roscosmos still mentions "India-Russia Space Mission May Occur in 2015". So, everything hasn't been finalized yet. Either way the news tells that the plan is at least moving ahead.

Annual Report 2009-10

The ISRO Annual Report for the fiscal year 2010-2011 is out. To be frank, this years report is something of a disappointment since there is not much new information released. Some of the missing topics are the development of Semicryogenic engine and something more substantial on the progress of Human Spaceflight Program.



On the GSLV Mk-III front, we have some updates regarding the development of C25 stage.

The development of cryogenic engine for GSLV Mk III is progressing well. The hot test of Integrated Turbo Pump (TP) with Gas Generator (GG) in bootstrap mode was conducted for 40 seconds on August 13, 2010. The bootstrap mode starting of CE20 turbo-pump system with stored gas start up system was carried out and safe ignition of gas generator demonstrated.

Subsystem level development tests have been completed in most of the areas. The project has entered into the phase of stage level tests for propulsion modules and vehicle level tests like Ground Resonance Test (GRT). Based on the development status of various subsystems GSLV MkIII vehicle, the Project has worked out the plan for achieving the first experimental launch during 2012.

The 2012 date would be very hard to keep considering the work still remaining. If everything goes according to schedule the C25 should be ready for stage-level tests only by the middle of next year.

The SRE-2 seems to be delayed from the tone used in the Report. It will now be launched in 2011-12 but is shown in 2012-13 launch slot in the mission profile chart.

The Human Spaceflight program section doesn't provide any new information. It does mention one worrying prospect.

Project report on “Development of critical technologies for Human Spaceflight Project” is under the consideration of Government of India for approval.

The program has to approved as soon as possible for Indians to be launched into space this decade.

With respect to the RLV-TD program, the first demonstration flight, HEX, which was supposed to take place last year will now take place no sooner than in 2012. The report mentions that the vehicle mass was changed and hence a corresponding change in mission design had to be done.

These are the snippets from the Space Transportation area. I will try and post another two posts on Earth Observation Systems and Communication satellites or combine them into one single post.

Link to the Report : 2010-11 Annual Report

Indian perspective on Manned Space Missions

While we wait for the failure report of GSLV-F06 to be out in the coming month, I thought I would post this seminar by Mr. Harish, Deputy Project Director, Human Spaceflight Program, VSSC. This particular seminar was part of the Aero India-2011 seminars and is titled "Indian perspective on Manned Space Missions - Reasons & Necessary Technologies".

The presentation itself covers information about the Human spaceflight Program, most of which is already known. But, there is one interesting slide in the presentation which reiterated the notion about the future of Indian Human Spaceflight Program beyond the GSLV, which was previously reported here.

GSLV-F06 Launch Failure

The GSLV-F06 flight was unsuccessful following an explosion at around T+60 seconds.



The S139 does have a very good record flying on both the PSLV and the GSLV, so it would come somewhat as a surprise if it did cause the failure. The strap-on boosters would be another suspect having previously failed on one of the GSLV flights.

It would be too early to debate the exact cause until there some official response from ISRO into what caused the failure.

RISAT-1 postponed to 2011

RISAT-1 Tile Source:ISRO

The launch of India's first satellite with an indigenous Synthetic Aperture Radar(SAR), the RISAT-1, has been delayed further to next year. Delays in the fabrication of satellite led to prioritization of RISAT-2, which uses a SAR developed from the Israel Aerospace Industries, launched back in April 2009.

The satellite is supposed to be launched in the first half of 2011 according to the Chairman of ISRO. The Director of the Space Applications Center had previously stated that the satellite would be launched in mid-2011 in an article for the IEEE-GRSS Newsletter. It would used for mapping and managing natural disasters, besides amplifying defence surveillance capabilities.

Further technical parameters and information on the satellite can he found here.

RISAT-1

India To Launch GSAT-5P In October

An update on the status of GSLV-F06 from Aviationweek:


BENGALURU, India — The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is gearing up to launch the 2,000-kg. GSAT-5P communication satellite in October using a Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), an ISRO official tells AVIATION WEEK.

“Configured as an exclusive C-band communication satellite, GSAT-5P will carry 12 normal C-band transponders and six extended C-band transponders with wider coverage in uplink and downlink over Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe as well as zonal coverage,” the official says. “The spacecraft has a mission life of 12 years and [is] planned to be launched onboard GSLV-F06.”

The satellite is expected to expand existing telecommunication and television bandwidth. A Russian cryogenic engine will be powering the GSLV-F06; ISRO plans to launch a GSLV with an Indian-made cryogenic engine within a year. Meanwhile, former ISRO chief Madhavan Nair said in Bengaluru Aug. 22 that through combined efforts, India might launch a manned mission to the Moon by 2021.

“There are a lot of mysteries and hypotheses on the origin of the Moon, and probing into these could possibly throw light on the origin of the Earth, Solar System and even the universe,” he says. “Helium-3, emitted from the Sun and found on the Moon, could end the fossil fuel crisis in the future, though we need to do lot of explorations in this field.”

Indian Delegation in Russia

Signing of an agreement on cooperation in space exploration between chairman of ISRO, Dr. K Radhakrishnan and head of ROSCOSMOS, Antony Perminov on August 4th in Moscow.