India and France will cooperate together for ISRO’s first manned mission, Gaganyaan, said French space agency President Jean-Yves Le Gall at the sixth edition of the Bengaluru Space Expo, PTI reported. The mission had earlier been announced by Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi during his independence day speech.
India will plan to send three people to space before 2022. The mission is considered essential as it will make India among four countries in the world to launch a manned space flight, others being Russia, US and China.
“ISRO and CNES, the French space agency, will be combining their expertise in fields of space medicine, astronaut health monitoring, life support, radiation protection, space debris protection and personal hygiene systems,” Gall said.
“Engineering teams have already begun discussions and it is envisioned that infrastructure such as CADMOS centre for development of microgravity applications and space operations or the MEDES space clinic will be used for training of future Indian astronauts, as well as exchange of specialist personnel,” Gall said.
ISRO also has plans to carry out experiments on microgravity through its astronauts.
France and India have already cooperated together in the space sector through areas of monitoring climate. A fleet of joint satellites, through a joint technical group, are programmed to to research and operational applications and innovation of future launch vehicles.
Gall said, “CNES is especially proud to be working on this endeavour alongside ISRO to share the experience it has acquired from the first French human spaceflights to Thomas Pesquet’s Proxima mission, and to hone our own expertise by learning from ISRO’s innovative developments in the field of crew transport.”
