Who Is Vyommitra? Meet The Female Robot That ISRO Is Sending On Gaganyaan Mission
The second phase of the Gaganyaan mission will launch a female space-faring humanoid robot Vyommitra.
Union Minister of State for Space, Dr. Jitendra Singh on Saturday said the trials for the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO)'s Gagayaan missions will start in October. He also that the second phase of the mission will launch a female space-faring humanoid robot Vyommitra.
Who is Vyomitra and what can it do
Vyommitra is a combination of two Sanskrit words Vyoma (Space) and Mitra (Friend). Vyommitra is the prototype of the half-humanoid and has been made for the first unmanned Gaganyaan mission. Female humanoid Vyommitra first made her appearance at the opening session of the 2021 event 'Human Spaceflight and Exploration - Present Challenges and Future Trends'.
Vyommitra can monitor through module parameters, send alerts and perform life support operations. It can perform activities like switch panel operations. The robot can also be a companion and converse with the astronauts, recognise them and can also respond to their queries. The half-humanoid will simulate human functions in space and also interact with the environment control life support system.
What is Gaganyaan Mission
Gaganyaan project aimns to demonstrate human spaceflight capability. It plans to launch a crew of 3 members to an orbit of 400 km for a 3 days mission and bring them back safely to earth, by landing in Indian sea waters.
The pre-requisites for Gaganyaan mission include development of many critical technologies including human rated launch vehicle for carrying crew safely to space. It will also require a life support system to provide an earth like environment to crew in space, crew emergency escape provision and evolving crew management aspects for training, recovery and rehabilitation of crew.
The ISRO website states that various missions are planned before Gaganyaan actually starts the mission. These precursor missions are for demonstrating the Technology Preparedness Levels before carrying out the actual Human Space Flight mission. These demonstrator missions include Integrated Air Drop Test (IADT), Pad Abort Test (PAT) and Test Vehicle (TV) flights. The safety and reliability of all systems will be proven in unmanned missions preceding manned mission.