NEW DELHI, April 18. /TASS/. Russia is conducting aerodynamic tests of the descent vehicle and the emergency rescue system for India’s Gaganyaan manned spacecraft, an official at the office of Deputy Prime Minister and Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov told reporters on Tuesday.

"We are assisting in the implementation of the program for creation of India’s manned spacecraft Gaganyaan. <..> Contracts are being concluded for wind tunnel testing of models of the descent vehicle and the emergency rescue system of the Indian manned spacecraft for the Gaganyaan mission," the official said.

He added that Russia is also making contracts to supply sets of flight suits and sets of crew seats and speed sensors.

According to Manturov’s office, manned space programs and satellite navigation are now the key areas of space cooperation between the two countries. In addition, much attention is being paid to the training of Indian cosmonauts.

Earlier, the general director of the Zvezda enterprise, Sergey Pozdnyakov told TASS that spacesuits and their accessories as well as shock-absorbing seats for India's manned space mission Gaganyaan are ready. In turn, JSC Glavkosmos (part of Russian space corporation Roscosmos) reported it had delivered the systems and equipment for the ship to the Indian side.

Gaganyaan program

In August 2018, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi officially announced that his country would send its first national space crew into orbit by August 2022, as the country prepared to celebrate the 75th anniversary of independence from British colonial rule. The name of the project "Gaganyaan" (from the Sanskrit "gagan" - heaven) means "celestial vehicle". While the three crew members were originally scheduled to spend five to seven days in orbit, a group of Indian astronauts have already been trained in Russia's Star City (Zvyozdny gorodok).

However, in November 2022, the ISRO announced that due to the coronavirus pandemic, which essentially halted work on the project in March 2020, the launch of the Gaganyaan mission into space was postponed.