ISRO Shubhanshu Shukla mission cost: Culminating a 20-day landmark space programme, Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, first Indian to visit the International Space Station (ISS), touched down on Earth on Tuesday.
Shukla was among the four crew members on board SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft on Axiom-4 mission and gathered hands-on experience of a space journey that would be help in India’s first-ever human spaceflight mission, Gaganyaan.
Shukla is among four Indian air force officers shortlisted to travel on Gaganyaan in 2027.
So, how much did Indian ISRO spend on Shubhanshu Shukla this time?
According to BBC, the Space Research Organisation (ISRO) spent Rs 5 billion or Rs 500 crore ($59m; £43m) on Shukla’s trip on Axiom-4 — a commercial flight operated by Houston-based private company Axiom Space and a joint effort by NASA, ISRO and European Space Agency.
The expenditure by ISRO includes cost of Shukla’s training for the mission as well as that of a seat on SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft for the 20-day trip that launched Shukla, and three others — Peggy Whitson from the US, Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski of Poland and Tibor Kapu of Hungary — to space.
Speaking to BBC, ISRO project director Sudeesh Balan stated that Shukla started rigourous training in August last year. His training included physical and psychological assessments to prepare for the journey.
The mission is likely to benefit ISRO in terms of relevant trainings, exposure to the facilities and the experience of conducting collaborative experiments in space.
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ISRO’s future ambitions
- ISRO’s Gaganyaan mission planned for 2027 aims to take three astronauts to an orbit of 400km and return after three days.
- India is also looking at ambitious plans to set up a space station by 2035.
- It is also working on to send a manned mission to the moon by 2040.
