4 Indian Air Force Pilots Begin Training For Spaceflight In Russia

Four Indian Air Force (IAF) pilots began training for the country's maiden manned mission Gaganyaan around the earth's orbit in 2022 at the Gagarin research and test cosmonaut training centre in Russia's Moscow, an official said on Tuesday.

"The year-long training, which includes biomedical, physical practices, study of the Soyuz manned spaceship (module) and weightlessness mode aboard the special Ilyushin-76 MDK aircraft began on Monday," an official of the state-run Indian Space Research Organsiation (ISRO) told IANS here.

The four pilots, whose names and ranks have not been made public yet, were selected by the space agency for the week-long human spaceflight around the earth to conduct experiments in micro-gravity and bio-science.