India has not made any offer to Russia to purchase Soyuz-TMA spacecraft to undertake the country’s own human space flight slated for 2015-16, a top space department official said.
“No, that’s all what the newspapers write,” Indian Space Research Organisation chairman K Radhakrishnan told PTI here on reports in a section of the Russian media which talked about the “offer“.
Russian reports also said China had received technical documentation on various Soyuz-TM systems and used them to develop its own Shenzhou manned spacecraft.
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Mr. Radhakrishnan said, “We have a (human space flight) programme,” adding, ISRO is going to put two Indians in an orbit around the earth.
“That’s our plan. Studies have been conducted. There is a pre-project which is already going on to study some of the critical technologies. And we have a project report which we have given to the Government (for approval),” he said.
ISRO officials said the proposal for undertaking the human space flight to carry humans to a low earth orbit and ensure their safe return to earth has been prepared and submitted to the government for approval.
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The space department has already carried out a detailed study on technical and managerial issues related to undertaking manned space missions with an aim to building and demonstrating the country’s capability.
The programme envisages development of a fully autonomous orbital vehicle carrying two or three crew—members to a 300 km earth orbit.