ESA to support Indian human spaceflight missions
On 4 December 2024, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) signed an agreement that will see ESA provide ground station support to the missions in ISRO's Gaganyaan human spaceflight programme.
Gaganyaan is India's first human spaceflight programme. It currently consists of three planned missions: two uncrewed missions followed by one crewed mission. ESA will support all three missions.
"The Network Operations Centre at ESA's ESOC mission control centre in Germany will coordinate a series of radio antennas in the global European Space Tracking network (Estrack) that will enable ISRO to track, monitor and command the Gaganyaan crew module throughout each mission," said Octave Procope-Mamert, Head of Ground Facility Operations at ESA.
The first Gaganyaan mission, currently foreseen for 2025, will be supported by ESA's 15 m antenna in Kourou, French Guiana.
Following missions will also be supported by antennas owned by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Spanish National Institute for Aerospace Technology (INTA), all linked via ESOC.
A suitcase-sized model of the Gaganyaan radio equipment will soon arrive at ESOC in Germany for radio frequency compatibility testing at the site's Ground Segment Reference Facility. The compatibility tests will ensure that the spacecraft's radio transmitter and receiver can effectively communicate with ESA's antenna in Kourou.
ESA and ISRO have a long history of spaceflight cooperation. Recent highlights include ESA's support to ISRO's Chandrayaan-3 Moon mission in 2023.
ESA's ground stations are also downlinking the bulk of the data gathered by ISRO's Aditya-L1 solar observatory throughout its mission to study the Sun and the origins of space weather.
ISRO, meanwhile, recently oversaw the launch of ESA's Proba-3 mission, the third mission of the Proba series to be launched from India.
The two space agencies are committed to deepening this collaboration in the future, with ESA's support to ISRO's human spaceflight programme seen as a significant step forward.
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