Dr. M Mohan took charge as Director Human Spaceflight Centre (HSFC), from R Umamaheswaran who superannuated on May 31 Before becoming director-HSFC, Mohan was associate director at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) Dr Mohan has earlier served as Project Director, Space Capsule Recovery Mohan’s appointment not change the composition of the Gaganyaan
Bengaluru, June 12. The ISRO Human Space Flight Centre (HSFC), which is leading the implementation of India’s first human spaceflight mission (Gaganyaan) has a new director, M Mohan, who has taken over ahead of a crucial test mission planned in mid-July or August. Mohan took charge from Umamaheswaran R, who superannuated on May 31, ISRO Chairman S Somanath, confirming this to India Strategic Magazine, here, said, Mohan’s appointment will not change the composition of the Gaganyaan — the first human mission planned by India-team as the Project Director and other positions continue to remain with the same personnel.
Mohan from the rocket side has served as project director Space Capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE), which ISRO carried out in 2007 as a precursor to the human Spaceflight mission more than a decade before Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced Gaganyaan mission.
Before becoming director-HSFC, Mohan was associate director at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), ISRO’ srocket building unit, and before that he was also with liquid propulsion.
While Gaganyaan is the first of the human space flight missions India plans to execute, work for which is happening across ISRO centres, including VSSC and URSC, HSFC is spearheading the mission through co-ordinated efforts and focus all the activities that are carried out in other centres, research labs in India, Indian academia and Industries towards accomplishing the mission.
HSFC shall be responsible for implementation of GAGANYAAN Project which involves end-to-end mission planning, development of Engineering systems for crew survival in space, crew selection & training and also pursue activities for sustained human space flight missions. HSFC will take support of the existing ISRO Centres to implement , the first development flight of GAGANYAAN under Human Space Flight Programme
According to ISRO, as the lead centre of the human spaceflight activities, HSFC will also be responsible for all future human spaceflight missions, ISRO plans. To meet this, it will need to conform to high standards of reliability and human safety in undertaking R&D activities in new technology areas like, life support systems, human factors engineering, bioastronautics, crew training and human rating &certification.
“These areas would constitute important components for future sustained human space flight activities like rendezvous and docking, space station building and interplanetary collaborative manned missions to Moon/Mars and near-earth asteroids,” according to ISRO.
The change in HSFC comes at a time ISRO is looking to carry out the first abort test using the special test vehicle (TV) designed for the purpose.
According to Somanath, while the space agency was looking to conduct the test in mid-July, it may now happen in early August, following which the second test will be done in the later part of the year.
The first abort test using TV is expected to see the simulated crew module separated from the vehicle at a height of around 11 km (from sea level), attain an altitude of around 15 km before falling back in the Bay of Bengal.
The mission — TV technology demonstrator-1 (TV-TD1) mission — will be the first of several such tests ISRO plans to conduct before the first uncrewed mission under Gaganyaan.
