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Indian-Russian space cooperation as important as ever — first Indian cosmonaut

Rakesh Sharma noted that the Indian astronauts had gained tremendous experience when training in Russia

NEW DELHI, April 12. /TASS/. Indian-Russian cooperation on crewed space missions remains as important and relevant as ever, almost 40 years after the first Indian flew to space on board the Soviet spaceship Soyuz, Rakesh Sharma, the first Indian cosmonaut and Hero of the Soviet Union, said in an interview with TASS.

"It is important <…>. Of course, it’s the fact that I’ve been a beneficiary of the first space flight which India has done until now and that happened on a Soviet spaceship, that is on the Soyuz and the Salyut. This was back in 1984. And that is continued, cooperation is continued all this way," Sharma said.

"At present, four [Indians] are waiting to be astronauts or cosmonauts, whatever you may call them. They’ve just returned from Star City after doing the same kind of training. And they’re now in Bangalore. They are going to be training in Bangalore, getting familiar with the transport that will take them into Earth’s orbit," he said.

Sharma pointed out that the profile of their flight would be different, as the Indian ‘Gaganauts’ (as the future Indian cosmonauts are called in local press) are expected to go on a space mission, spend several days in orbit and return to the Earth.

"We do not have a laboratory up there, like the Salyut in the era of Soviet. So it will be a relatively simpler space mission, but it would demonstrate the capability of India in ensuring a manned space flight. And also it would increase the confidence level of our space scientists for sustaining humans in space and bringing them back safely," he added.

40 years later

"So there has been ongoing cooperation, first which culminated in my own space flight, and now even if it is 39 years, four decades later, once again a next lot of Indians have been trained at Star City (Zvezdny Gorodok) and they are going to be launching next year, perhaps, on an Indian launcher going up into space," he said.

Sharma added that the Indian astronauts had gained tremendous experience when training in Russia.

"After their training at Star City, they [the Indian space crew members] are going to be much better prepared for the space flight," the first Indian cosmonaut added.

In August 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi officially announced that India would send the first national crew into space by August 2022, coinciding with the country’s 75th anniversary of regaining its independence from British colonial rule. The project was dubbed Gaganyaan (which translates as ‘heaven’ in Sanskrit) or "Celestial Vehicle." The original plan was for the three crew members to spend three to five days in orbit. The Indian astronauts had already undergone training at Russia’s Star City. However, in 2021, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) reported that due to the coronavirus pandemic, which had mothballed most preparations for the mission in March 2020, the launch of the Gaganyaan mission was postponed, according to the most recent information, until 2024.

In 1982, Rakesh Sharma, an Indian Air Force fighter squadron commander, was selected for a Soviet-Indian mission and trained at Star City outside Moscow in the Soviet Union. Alongside Soviet cosmonauts Yuri Malyshev and Gennady Strekalov, Sharma was part of the crew that manned the Soyuz T-11 spacecraft, which launched on April 3, 1984 and docked to the Salyut-7 orbital station. This made India the 14th country to have its own cosmonaut. The international crew returned to Earth on April 11, 1984 after being in space for 7 days, 21 hours and 41 minutes.