ETtechUS-based Space Exploration and Research Agency (SERA), in collaboration with Blue Origin, on Monday announced India as a partner nation in their human spaceflight programme for citizens from countries who have sent few or no astronauts to space. SERA will offer citizens from across the world six seats on a future mission of New Shepard, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin’s reusable suborbital rocket.
New Shepard will fly the selected astronauts on an 11-minute journey past the Kármán line. The Karman line is the boundary separating Earth's atmosphere and outer space. The line is neither sharp nor well defined but is often taken to encircle Earth at an altitude between 80 to 100 km (50 to 62 miles) above mean sea level. Astronauts will experience several minutes of weightlessness before making a controlled descent back to the landing pad.
Any Indian citizen can register for the programme by paying a fee of ~$2.50 (Rs. 209) to cover the costs of verification checks that ensure safe and fair voting. The final candidates will be voted on by the public for an opportunity to fly to space onboard the New Shepard mission.
The potential astronauts will be required to meet Blue Origin's physical requirements. They can garner votes by telling their story to the public using their mission profile pages, social media, and other resources. Voting will progress through candidate elimination across three phases. The public will vote only for candidates from their nation or region, except for the sixth global seat.
The final six crew will arrive three days prior to the flight for training at Blue Origin’s launch site in West Texas. The training largely revolves around safety procedures and protocols during the flight. SERA will be undertaking a separate training prior to that about the science experiments that it intends to perform.
Physical requirements
The astronaut chosen by the public must be 18 years of age or above, should be able to speak basic English for safety protocols, needs to be able to ascend a few stairs and ingress and egress from a seat.
Sam Hutchison, co-founder, SERA, told ET, in an interaction, “India has more brilliant engineers and scientists than any other country on the planet. Its national government has prioritised space exploration in an incredibly meaningful way. It will be launching Indian astronauts in an Indian spacecraft in 12-18 months.”
“For an organisation (SERA) that is trying to empower and excite the general public about the opportunities that space exploration and commercial development of space offers, we couldn’t think of a more suitable candidate than India,” he said about choosing India as one of the five nation candidates for the six seats that SERA is paying for.
Asked if the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) was part of any of SERA’s discussions, Joshua Skurla, another co-founder of SERA, told ET, “We did have some initial conversations with Indian private Space sector regulator IN-SPACe who encouraged us to consider India as a candidate country.”
“The other partner nations that have been confirmed are Nigeria, the Small Island Developing States, a grouping of developing countries which are small island countries, one seat has been confirmed for anyone from anywhere as far as they’re not sanctioned by the US, and we have two seats to be announced in the upcoming weeks,” Skurla added.
Space research mission not just tourist flight
Hutchinson emphasised that the community is going to “be the astronaut, choose the astronaut, propose and choose the science experiment.”
“There are going to be some autonomously operated experiments. This is a meaningful space research mission not just a tourist flight. The astronauts and autonomous payloads are going to be focussed on research that relates to the human body’s experience in space laying the foundation for longer duration human space flight,” he said.
However, he did not divulge the objectives of the science experiments. “One of the best-known scientific space research organisations will be announcing details later,” he said.
Skurla said they’re going through some processes and approval for some of the things that will be flown during the mission. “Since we want to open this up for public proposals, we have to create platforms, templates, and parameters for the experiment ahead of time to get approval for flight,” Hutchinson said.
“Our mission is to democratise space by enabling citizens from over 150 countries with limited access to space to participate in ground-breaking research and create history,” added Skurla.
Funding
He added that SERA had raised private capital in 2022 and follow on rounds in the last two years which is supporting the mission. SERA is also developing “media properties which are derivative products to accompany the astronaut selection process over the course of the experience”.
“We believe these are good monetisation opportunities,” Skurla said.
Gopi Thotakura, an entrepreneur and pilot from Andhra Pradesh, became the first Indian space tourist when he flew on Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin NS-25 mission in May this year. Thotakura was one of six crew members on the mission, which reached the Kármán line. Thotakura had paid for that seat.
In June, Indian-origin Andy Sadhwani, a propulsion engineer for SpaceX, flew aboard Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity suborbital spacecraft.
As far as manned Indian space missions are concerned, the four astronaut designates for India’s 2025 Gaganyaan crewed orbital spacecraft include Group Captain Prashanth Balakrishnan Nair, Group Captain Angad Prathap, Group Captain Ajit Krishnan and Wing Commander Shubanshu Shukla.
Gaganyaan mission will seek to demonstrate India’s human spaceflight capability by launching astronauts to Low Earth orbit (LEO) of 400 kms for a three-day mission and bringing them safely to earth with a planned splashdown in Indian sea waters.
The last time an Indian astronaut travelled to space was aboard the erstwhile Soviet Union's Soyuz T-11 spacecraft four decades ago in 1984.
New Shepard will fly the selected astronauts on an 11-minute journey past the Kármán line. The Karman line is the boundary separating Earth's atmosphere and outer space. The line is neither sharp nor well defined but is often taken to encircle Earth at an altitude between 80 to 100 km (50 to 62 miles) above mean sea level. Astronauts will experience several minutes of weightlessness before making a controlled descent back to the landing pad.
Blue Origin builds reusable rocket engines, launch vehicles, in-space systems, and lunar landers. SERA was founded to build a global community dedicated to space exploration and research. Its mission is to create a space agency for everyone.
Any Indian citizen can register for the programme by paying a fee of ~$2.50 (Rs. 209) to cover the costs of verification checks that ensure safe and fair voting. The final candidates will be voted on by the public for an opportunity to fly to space onboard the New Shepard mission.
The potential astronauts will be required to meet Blue Origin's physical requirements. They can garner votes by telling their story to the public using their mission profile pages, social media, and other resources. Voting will progress through candidate elimination across three phases. The public will vote only for candidates from their nation or region, except for the sixth global seat.
The final six crew will arrive three days prior to the flight for training at Blue Origin’s launch site in West Texas. The training largely revolves around safety procedures and protocols during the flight. SERA will be undertaking a separate training prior to that about the science experiments that it intends to perform.
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Physical requirements
The astronaut chosen by the public must be 18 years of age or above, should be able to speak basic English for safety protocols, needs to be able to ascend a few stairs and ingress and egress from a seat.
Sam Hutchison, co-founder, SERA, told ET, in an interaction, “India has more brilliant engineers and scientists than any other country on the planet. Its national government has prioritised space exploration in an incredibly meaningful way. It will be launching Indian astronauts in an Indian spacecraft in 12-18 months.”
“For an organisation (SERA) that is trying to empower and excite the general public about the opportunities that space exploration and commercial development of space offers, we couldn’t think of a more suitable candidate than India,” he said about choosing India as one of the five nation candidates for the six seats that SERA is paying for.
Asked if the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) was part of any of SERA’s discussions, Joshua Skurla, another co-founder of SERA, told ET, “We did have some initial conversations with Indian private Space sector regulator IN-SPACe who encouraged us to consider India as a candidate country.”
“The other partner nations that have been confirmed are Nigeria, the Small Island Developing States, a grouping of developing countries which are small island countries, one seat has been confirmed for anyone from anywhere as far as they’re not sanctioned by the US, and we have two seats to be announced in the upcoming weeks,” Skurla added.
Space research mission not just tourist flight
Hutchinson emphasised that the community is going to “be the astronaut, choose the astronaut, propose and choose the science experiment.”
“There are going to be some autonomously operated experiments. This is a meaningful space research mission not just a tourist flight. The astronauts and autonomous payloads are going to be focussed on research that relates to the human body’s experience in space laying the foundation for longer duration human space flight,” he said.
However, he did not divulge the objectives of the science experiments. “One of the best-known scientific space research organisations will be announcing details later,” he said.
Skurla said they’re going through some processes and approval for some of the things that will be flown during the mission. “Since we want to open this up for public proposals, we have to create platforms, templates, and parameters for the experiment ahead of time to get approval for flight,” Hutchinson said.
“Our mission is to democratise space by enabling citizens from over 150 countries with limited access to space to participate in ground-breaking research and create history,” added Skurla.
Funding
He added that SERA had raised private capital in 2022 and follow on rounds in the last two years which is supporting the mission. SERA is also developing “media properties which are derivative products to accompany the astronaut selection process over the course of the experience”.
“We believe these are good monetisation opportunities,” Skurla said.
Gopi Thotakura, an entrepreneur and pilot from Andhra Pradesh, became the first Indian space tourist when he flew on Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin NS-25 mission in May this year. Thotakura was one of six crew members on the mission, which reached the Kármán line. Thotakura had paid for that seat.
In June, Indian-origin Andy Sadhwani, a propulsion engineer for SpaceX, flew aboard Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity suborbital spacecraft.
As far as manned Indian space missions are concerned, the four astronaut designates for India’s 2025 Gaganyaan crewed orbital spacecraft include Group Captain Prashanth Balakrishnan Nair, Group Captain Angad Prathap, Group Captain Ajit Krishnan and Wing Commander Shubanshu Shukla.
Gaganyaan mission will seek to demonstrate India’s human spaceflight capability by launching astronauts to Low Earth orbit (LEO) of 400 kms for a three-day mission and bringing them safely to earth with a planned splashdown in Indian sea waters.
The last time an Indian astronaut travelled to space was aboard the erstwhile Soviet Union's Soyuz T-11 spacecraft four decades ago in 1984.
( Originally published on Jul 01, 2024 )
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