What is Human Spaceflight?
Space has always attracted every human being that survives on earth. This fascinating journey was creating a new window for exploring outer space with human existence. That's why we move on "Human Spaceflight" missions around our moon and other planets.
Human spaceflight (also referred manned spaceflight) is outer space travel with passengers aboard the spacecraft (space vehicle). Spacecraft generally carrying peoples may be operated by humans or it may be autonomous. They are able to carry out a mission with scientific instruments attached to an onboard system of spacecraft.
The first human in space was Yuri Gagarin, who flew the Vostok-1 spacecraft. This mission was launched by the Soviet Union in 1961 as part of the Vostok program. The human spaceflight program has been conducted by Russia, the USA, China, Japan, France, India, etc. But only three nations(Soviet Union/Russia, US, China) have launched their own human spacecraft. Human spaceflight capability was first developed during the Cold War between the US & USSR.
The Indian Human Spaceflight Programme announced on 15 Aug 2018 by the former Prime Minister of India in New Delhi. Through this program, India is planning to send humans into space by the end of 2021. The spacecraft Gaganyaan which is developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to carries humans from this mission since 2006. The objective is to carry a human to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and return them safely on a predefined landing site. In June 2019, ISRO Chairman K. Sivan told plans for the space station by 2030 followed by a crewed lunar mission.
Around the globe as time lapsed the private spaceflight has been undertaken. Several of the companies including Blue Origin, SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, and the Sierra Nevada have plans to advance human spaceflight.
SpaceX is an American aerospace manufacturer and space transport service company founded by Elon Musk in 2002 in California, US. SpaceX has developed several launch vehicles and Dragon spacecraft. SpaceX is popular with their clients because they provide a robust, reliable workhorse that is a fraction of the cost of their competitors. Nowadays NASA(American space agency) offers launch programs to SpaceX with reliable and cheaper costs.
The future of the human spaceflight programme is to develop a plan to land humans on Mars within the next decade. NASA will begin with Artemis-1 in 2021, sending an uncrewed Onion spacecraft to the moon spent 25 days. Several other countries announced their human spaceflight programme including Japan(JAXA), Iran(ISA), Malasia(MNSA).
Human existence in space redefined the future of every humankind lives on earth.
…….Yogesh Bhamare
