Forty-one years apart, determination are immoderate similarities and a fewer differences betwixt the missions of India’s archetypal astronaut, Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma and the upcoming formation into abstraction by Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, which are not lone reflective of the technological advances, but besides the changing geopolitical alignments.
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Wg Cdr Sharma had flown to the Soviet abstraction station, Salyut-7, with 2 different Russians on-board the Soviet rocket, Soyuz, successful 1984 successful the mediate of the Cold War betwixt the erstwhile Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) and the United States, and their allies, forming the opposing alliances of Warsaw Pact and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
That decennary was besides the precocious constituent of India-Russia subject ties, peculiarly the aerial force, which had inducted frontline combatant craft similar the MiG-23, MiG-27 and MiG-29, on with the Il-76 and An-32 transport planes and Mi-17 helicopters.
The Indian Navy excessively saw induction of large Soviet platforms similar the Kashin Class destroyers and the Kilo Class submarine, on with the lease of a atomic powered Charlie Class submarine.
On June 10, 2025, Gp Capt Shukla volition question to the International Space Station (ISS) from an American motorboat centre connected committee an American rocket, Falcon-9 arsenic portion of the Axion-4 ngo with 3 different unit members from the US, Poland and Hungary.
Both the Indian astronauts are combatant pilots and trial pilots from the Indian Air Force. While Sharma was a probe astronaut on-board the Soviet mission, Shukla is the designated aviator for the American mission’s spacecraft. Both underwent rigorous enactment processes and grooming overseas to go astronauts.
Between the 2 journeys beyond the Earth’s atmosphere, determination has been a oversea alteration successful planetary powerfulness dynamics and the emergence of caller players successful the economic, subject and abstraction domains, which includes India and China.
The USSR collapsed successful 1991 and Warsaw Pact ceased to beryllium and though its successor, Russia, remains a adjacent state and a apical arms supplier to India, determination has been increasing engagement with the US. The procurement of subject instrumentality from the US implicit the past 2 decades has seen a important summation with platforms specified arsenic the C-17 strategical freighter and the C-130 peculiar ngo aircraft, Chinook dense assistance helicopters, Apache onslaught helicopters, Boeing P-8 maritime surveillance aircraft, drones, etc. India is present besides looking progressively towards occidental suppliers for subject equipment.
Also connected the array are military-to-military exchanges specified arsenic associated grooming exercises astatine assorted levels crossed each 3 services and multilateral alliances similar the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) for practice connected economical and information issues. It was lone successful the mid-1990s that ties with Indo-US ties began moving northbound and subject practice anterior to that was virtually non-existent.
Coming to the motorboat vehicles for the 2 missions, the Falcon-9 is larger, technologically much precocious with automated processes, and tin transportation heavier payloads than the Soyuz. The Soyuz made its archetypal formation successful 1973, portion the Falcon-9’s archetypal motorboat was successful 2010. The Falcon is partially reusable, implying that its archetypal signifier booster tin beryllium recovered and enactment to usage again, portion the Soyuz was expendable.
Experiments and technological studies are portion of each astronaut’s mission. Sharma’s enactment was chiefly successful the fields of bio-medicine and distant sensing. He conducted an Earth reflection programme concentrating connected India and materials processing experiments.
The scope of Shukla’s mandate nether micro-gravity conditions successful abstraction is wider. This includes investigating carnal and cognitive interaction of machine screens, studying growth, metabolism and genetics of microalgae strains, comparing the growth, cellular responses and biochemistry of cyanobacteria strains, identifying pathways of skeletal musculus dysfunction and exploring therapies, examining spaceflight impacts connected harvest seed, investigating the impacts of spaceflight connected germination and maturation of harvest seeds and identifying molecular mechanisms of resilience successful utmost environments.
While Wg Cdr Sharma had spent adjacent to 8 days successful space, Gp Capt Shukla’s ngo is scheduled to beryllium for 14 days. Sharma and his Russian companions had utilized 2 antithetic unit capsules, the T-11 for docking and the T-10 for instrumentality to Earth, whereas Shukla and his squad members would beryllium utilizing the aforesaid spacecraft, Dragon C-213 for the to and fro journey.
The orbital altitudes are besides vastly different. The Salyut’s altitude supra the world was 219-278 km, portion the International Space Station orbits astir 400 km. The Salyut’s 9-year ngo ended successful 1991.
India’s ain abstraction programme has travel a agelong mode since 1984, erstwhile rocket improvement and outer motorboat projects were successful their infancy, with missions having constricted success. Now the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is simply a satellite leader, holding respective records and besides carrying retired commercialized outer launches for different countries.
India has enactment a spacecraft connected the moon, launched missions adjacent to the sun, planned exploration of Mars and is moving connected a manned abstraction flight. It has its ain web of satellites for communications, probe and onshore survey.
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