The Science Shaping India's First Astronaut Corps

India is preparing to send its first astronauts to space as part of a mission called Gaganyaan, planned for 2028. But these four astronauts are not just training to fly — they are also doing serious scientific research. Working with professors at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru, they are studying how humans can survive, build, and stay safe in space. Their work could one day help people live on the Moon or even on Mars.

One of the astronauts, Shubhanshu Shukla, is researching how future space settlers could build structures without hauling materials from Earth. Bringing construction supplies from our planet would cost far too much money and take up too much space on a rocket. So Shukla is looking at a natural process called microbially induced calcite precipitation, or MICP, where tiny bacteria bind loose soil particles together to form something like cement. If this works on Mars, astronauts could use local soil to build landing pads, roads for rovers, and cargo platforms.

The tricky part is that Mars has toxic salts in its soil called perchlorates, discovered by NASA's Phoenix lander. Most lab experiments had never tested MICP using soil that contained them. Shukla, working with IISc professor Aloke Kumar, added perchlorates to his Mars-like soil experiments and expected the bacteria to struggle or die. Instead, they survived and kept producing the cement-like material, suggesting that biological building methods could still work under Mars's harsh chemical conditions.

A second astronaut, Ajit Krishnan, is studying how spacecraft cockpit design affects the people flying them. Different countries have built their spacecraft differently — Russian and American ships like Soyuz, Apollo, and Orion each have their own layouts and controls. Krishnan worked with IISc professor Pradipta Biswas to test how these differences change how well astronauts perform their tasks. They used virtual reality simulations where pilots completed the same maneuvers under different cockpit setups, and results showed clear differences in workload, accuracy, and efficiency.

One finding was that downward-facing periscope views — similar to those in Russian spacecraft — helped astronauts do certain tasks better than forward-facing views. But every design had trade-offs, improving one skill while making another harder. This shows that spacecraft design is not just about machines — it is also about how the human brain and body work best in space. As Professor Biswas explained, the astronaut becomes part of the system itself, not just someone pressing buttons from the outside.

A third astronaut, Angad Pratap, is focused on a critical safety question: what happens when a spacecraft's computer systems fail and a human has to take over? Modern spacecraft rely on layers of automated safety systems that check and back each other up. But if all those systems are built the same way, they can fail for the same reason at the same time — a serious problem, especially during re-entry when the atmosphere is hard to predict. Pratap's research with IISc professor Jishnu Keshavan explores whether a trained human pilot can act as a flexible backup in these rare but dangerous moments.

Pratap's simulation experiments show that even if an astronaut is not steering the whole time, they can step in and stabilize the spacecraft when automated systems struggle. His early results have already been used to build simulation models at ISRO's Human Space Flight Centre in Bengaluru. Researchers there are testing these ideas in realistic mission scenarios to see how well they work. This research could make future Indian space missions significantly safer.

All of this research points toward a bigger goal beyond the first Gaganyaan flights. Those early missions will focus on proving that India can safely send humans to space and bring them back. But the astronauts and their professors are thinking further ahead, toward India's plan to build and operate its own space station — the Bharatiya Antariksh Station — in the mid-2030s. Their work today is helping answer some of the hardest questions about how humans can truly live and thrive beyond Earth.