India in preliminary talks with Russia to fly astronauts on Soyuz rocket: Roscosmos

India is among the list of nations that are planning to send their astronauts on space missions aboard Russia’s Soyuz rockets, said Roscosmos Human Space Flight Programs Executive Director Sergei Krikalev per Sputnik. The official revealed that Russia is also in preliminary talks with Mongolia, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia but emphasised that public discussions over it now would be premature. 

“There have been talks with India, there were conversations with Mongolia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and others”, Krikalev told Sputnik. “Well, in short, all this is still a conversation at a preliminary level. That is, it is still too early to talk about some kind of advancement."

The official also said Roscosmos is highly impressed with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and its advancement in the space sector. The UAE is the first Middle-Eastern country to have launched a successful mission to Mars and send its first astronaut, Hazzaa al-Mansoori, to the International Space Station in 2019.

Russia’s most recent successful mission was conducted on September 21 when it launched three space travellers to the ISS aboard the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft atop the Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket. This mission was significant because the crew consisted of NASA astronaut Frank Rubio along with two cosmonauts Sergei Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin. 

The MS-22 mission was carried out under the cross-flight deal agreed to between Russia and the US. In return, NASA launched cosmonaut Anna Kikina as the first-ever Russian on a commercial US spacecraft under the Crew-5 mission on October 5. 

Russia-India space relations

As for Russia-India relations in the space sector, it dates back to 1975 when the then Soviet Union helped the latter launch its first satellite, Aryabhata and kickstart the space program. Developed completely by ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) scientists in Bengaluru, the satellite was launched using a Soviet Kosmos-3M rocket. Rakesh Sharma, the first Indian to visit space in April 1984, was also trained in Russia and flew aboard the Russian rocket Soyuz T-11 to spend eight days in orbit.

In September 2019, Russia signed an agreement with India to train four Indian astronauts who will be sent to space under ISRO’s $1.4 billion maiden human space flight program Gaganyaan. Under this agreement, the selected candidates were sent for an 11-month-long training program at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Moscow. The agreement also binds Russia to build life support systems in the crew capsule to be used by the astronauts. 

On September 13, Union Minister Jitendra Singh announced that Gaganyaan is expected to launch in 2024 and it will see astronauts spend seven days in an indigenously-built, 3.7 tonnes spacecraft. Notably, ISRO will conduct a test flight with a spacefaring robot Vyom Mitra before manned flights.