CHENNAI: In a major step towards preparing astronauts for long-duration space missions, the Human Space Flight Centre (HSFC) of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has floated a tender to design and establish a Human Space Analog System (HSAS) at its Astronaut Training Facility in Bengaluru.
At present, Indian astronauts, most recently Shubhanshu Shukla, have to be sent to Russia for the training, as there is no such faciltity in India.
The facility, planned at the Simulator Hall of the facility, will replicate the challenging conditions astronauts could face during extended missions in space, while allowing researchers to study crew performance, psychology, human factors, experiments, systems integration, and mission operations under isolated, confined, and resource-limited conditions.
The facility is being developed to support simulations of missions lasting up to 60 days. The project is part of India's preparations under the Gaganyaan programme and is expected to play an important role in training and evaluating Indian astronauts, or Gaganyatris, for future long duration missions.
The proposed habitat will have a core module measuring about five metres in diameter and five metres in height, spread across two levels. The first level will include three crew workstations, equipment racks, and a payload rack, while the second level will have a galley, dining area, avionics dashboard, and exercise facilities, including a treadmill, cycle ergometer, and strength trainer.
It will also include an airlock module equipped with an air shower and spacesuit rack. A separate crew personal module will provide two storey sleeping bunks, a vacuum toilet, mist shower, and waterless washing machine.
One of the key features will be its closed loop habitability system, designed for a four-member crew. The habitat will maintain controlled environmental conditions, including temperature between 20 and 25 degrees Celsius.
The system will also monitor carbon dioxide levels, with the nominal concentration maintained below 1,000 ppm. An off-nominal experimental mode will allow researchers to simulate CO2 concentrations of up to 5,000 ppm to study crew response to abnormal conditions.
The habitat will also feature a communication system capable of simulating deep-space communication delays ranging from 0 to 20 minutes in one direction. This will allow the crew and mission controllers to train for communication challenges that could arise during future deep space missions.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning enabled 4K cameras will also be deployed for detecting fire, smoke, falls, and unauthorised intrusion.
More than 200 sensors are proposed across the facility to continuously monitor parameters including temperature, humidity, pressure, oxygen, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, noise, light levels and water quality. The data will be monitored in real time from the Mission Control Centre.
The habitat will also feature tunable circadian lighting, with LEDs capable of changing between 2,700K and 6,500K to replicate day-and-night cycles and help researchers study the impact of controlled lighting on crew members during extended isolation.
The documents said 100 TB of storage and two mission servers will support the facility's data requirements.
The development of the human space analog habitat is expected to provide ISRO with a controlled environment to study how astronauts adapt physically and psychologically to prolonged isolation, limited resources and operational challenges. The facility could become an important testing ground as India moves beyond the initial Gaganyaan missions towards more ambitious human spaceflight programmes, including the proposed Bharatiya Antariksh Station.