The long-awaited ‘Gaganyaan’ mission is waiting for its launch to create history by becoming India’s first crewed space flight carrying astronauts in space. However, the mission becomes more interesting with the introduction of Vyommitra, a humanoid female robot astronaut. For the success of the Gaganyaan mission, she will play a vital role by overcoming all the hurdles at the testing stage to accomplish the mission next year.
Vyommitra acquires its name from two Sanskrit words ‘Vyoma’ meaning ‘Space’ and ‘Mitra’ meaning ‘Friend’, developed by India’s Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Its objective is to assist the Gaganyaan mission for its launch in the next year 2025. Vyommitra is expected to be launched in the 3rd quarter of 2024. This robot friend on its flight journey will not carry any crew members or people and thus all the activities and operations will be self-performed.
Vyommitra astronaut is pioneered to replicate human-like activities and functions in space, communicate seamlessly with the Life Support System, handle queries, able to operate 6 panels operations, and convey alert messages during the need of time. It is designed to engage in microgravity assessment of diverse materials and systems on how they respond in space to provide valuable inputs for the Gaganyaan mission that will carry human astronauts next year.
It was disclosed that before the launch of Gaganyaan, the 1st test vehicle flight named TV D1 completed the mission last year on 21 October 2023 giving the green signal to the parachute system and the crew escape system securing astronauts’ safety for future missions, and every propulsion stages are cleared. The Gaganyaan project is on the right track exhibiting its potential to showcase our human space proficiency by sending astronauts into an orbit of 400 kilometres and bringing them back to Earth safely by landing in the Indian Ocean.
To overcome the language hindrance during the commencement of the mission, this is well-designed to interact in the dual language i.e. Hindi and English., Vyommitra in its journey is designed to monitor all the significant parameters forming part of the spacecraft module to ensure the safety of the crewed Gaganyaan mission in the final phase.