National Space Day 2024: ISRO releases video of training of Gaganyaan astronauts

India is celebrating National Space Day on 23 August 2024. This is the same date when ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3 landed near the south pole of the Moon last year. Preparations for National Space Day are going on across the country. ISRO chief Dr. S. Somnath has appealed to people across the country to participate in this celebration.

First let us know the whole story of Chandrayaan-3 landing

ISRO started live streaming the landing of Chandrayaan-3 at 5:20 pm on 23 August 2023. On YouTube, Facebook and ISRO’s site. Millions of people were watching it. When ISRO scientists informed that the landing is about to begin, people were eagerly not taking their eyes off ISRO’s streaming.

People were trying to understand by looking at the charts and graphs which only scientists understand. We will explain to you with a simple chart what was special about this landing. Chandrayaan-3 was 30 kilometers in height from the landing site and 745.6 kilometers from the surface. The landing starts from here. The landing was divided into four parts.

Rough braking phase: Chandrayaan-3’s lander had to travel from a height of 30 km to a distance of 7.4 km. It took 690 seconds for this. That is, 11.5 minutes. During this time, Chandrayaan travelled 713 km. The journey started at a speed of 1.68 km/sec. Which was reduced to 358 m/sec. The horizontal speed was 0.61 m per second.

Altitude Hold Phase : That is, the distance covered was from 32 to 28.52 km. The height was 6.8 km. The time taken was just 10 seconds. The speed of coming down was 336 m/s. The horizontal speed was .59 m per second.

Fine breaking phase: It covered a distance of 28.52 km to 0 km. That means the lander was now right above the landing spot. The height was 0.8 to 1.3 km. Because it had to come down after looking for the right place to land. That means it was flying like a helicopter. All four of its legs were facing downwards. In this position, it came up to a height of 150 meters at a speed of 2 meters per second. It took 175 seconds to complete this entire process, that is, about three minutes.

Terminal Descent Phase: It starts from a height of 150 meters straight down towards the surface. During this time, the Chandrayaan-3 lander was coming down horizontally at a speed of 0.5 meters per second and vertically at a speed of 2 meters per second.

It took him 73 seconds to reach 60 meters from 150 meters. Out of which 52 seconds were spent on retargeting. That is, he spent searching for a safe place. After this, he covered the distance from 60 meters to 10 meters in 38 seconds. In the last 9 seconds, he covered the distance from 10 meters to the surface.

After so much calculation and precision, Vikram Lander put its feet on the moon’s surface. Then the mission was successful. Not only this, when the moon dust raised due to the landing settled down on the ground around three minutes after the landing, Pragyan Rover came out.

Now know about our astronauts…

These are test pilots of the Indian Air Force. These four have flown almost all the fighter jets of the Air Force. Let us know who these four are? Where do they live? What is their education?

Group Captain Prashanth Balakrishnan Nair

Born on 26 August 1976 in Thiruvazhiyad, Kerala. Completed training at NDA. Has received the Sword of Honor from the Air Force Academy. On 19 December 1998, he was included in the Air Force’s fighter jet program. Was made a fighter pilot. He is a CAT-A class flying instructor and test pilot. Has about 3000 hours of flying experience.

Prashant Nair has flown aircraft like Su-30MKI, MiG-21, MiG-29, Hawk, Dornier, AN-32 etc. He is also an alumnus of United States Staff College, DSSC, Wellington and FIS, Tambaram. He has also been the Commandant of Sukhoi-30 Squadron.

Group Captain Ajit Krishnan

Born on 19 April 1982 in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, Ajith completed his army training from NDA. He has received the Gold Medal from the President and the Sword of Honor from the Air Force Academy. On 21 June 2003, he was inducted into the fighter stream of the Indian Air Force. He has 2900 hours of experience as a flying instructor and test pilot. Ajith has flown aircraft like Su-30MKI, MiG-21, Mig-21 Bison, Mig-19, Jaguar, Dornier, N-32. He is an alumnus of DSSC, Wellington.

Group Captain Angad Pratap

Born on 17 July 1982 in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, Angad Pratap received his military training at NDA. He was inducted into the fighter stream of the Air Force on 18 December 2004. He has nearly 2000 hours of experience as a flying instructor and test pilot. Angad has flown aircraft and fighter jets like Sukhoi-30MKI, MiG-21, MiG-29, Jaguar, Hawk, Dornier and N-32.

Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla

Born on 10 October 1985 in Lucknow, Shubhanshu received his military training at NDA. He was inducted into the fighter stream of the Air Force on 17 June 2006. He is a fighter combat leader and a test pilot. He has 2000 hours of flying experience. He has flown aircraft and fighter jets like Sukhoi-30MKI, Mig-21, Mig-29, Jaguar, Hawk, Dornier, N-32.