BENGALURU: As Isro prepares for multiple uncrewed tests and flights as part of Gaganyaan, India’s first human spaceflight mission, progress has been made with the temporary ground station tracking facilities at Australia’s Cocos (Keeling) islands. “..
.The Indian team has visited the islands, surveyed the site and confirmed it’s the right site and they’re now working with an Australian project manager to set up the facilities,” Australian Space Agency (ASA) head Enrico Palermo told TOI in an exclusive interview. TOI was the first to report that Isro was exploring Cocos Islands for its tracking station.
Terming Gaganyaan an inspirational mission, Palermo said: “We’re doing that [tracking station] through an implementing arrangement from a government-to-government perspective and the reason India has chosen the Islands is when you look at the trajectory of the Gaganyaan flights, it’s the optimal spot to do tracking telemetry and control,” he said. He said his team and he would be discussing further collaborations on the human spaceflight programme with Isro this week and that the tracking station was only the first piece. “We’re also working on supporting India with scenarios where you might have emergency scenarios.
So, again, if you look at the trajectory of the spacecraft, if there's any aborts and a need to recover the crew, it will be in Australian waters,” Palermo said. He said ASA was ensuring that it’s there to support India should there be an.