Bengaluru: Three-and-a-half decades after Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma journeyed into space along with two cosmonauts of the erstwhile Soviet Union, four young combat jet pilots of the Indian Air Force will set off to Russia later this month to train for the historic flight to outer space – likely either at the end of next year or early 2022 – onboard an Indian rocket as part of the Gaganyaan programme announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to mark India’s 75th year of Independence.
Though four pilots, all men, would train, just as Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma and Air Commodore Ravish Malhotra did in the early 1980s, one of them would journey into outer space in a Made-in-India spaceship to carry out six experiments for about a week, Dr K. Sivan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation, announced in Bengaluru on Wednesday.
