KOCHI: After scripting history in April by becoming the first Asian to participate in and finish the gruelling Golden Globe Race, considered the holy grail of sailing, Cdr Abhilash Tomy, a former naval officer, is set to etch his name on a space mission. The 44-year-old is set to aid the India Space Research Organisation (ISRO) with its next project – Gaganyaan-3, India’s first manned space mission.
A formative step in the Indian human spaceflight programme, Gaganyaan-3, which is in development, will see a space capsule carrying a crew of three orbiting the Earth for up to seven days before crashing back into the atmosphere and plunging into the Indian Ocean.
“This is where I will come in. I will help aid the recovery of the capsule and the crew. My experience of sailing the world’s oceans will be put to use here,” Abhilash told TNIE. Though he refrained from divulging any more details, TNIE learnt from reliable sources that Tomy’s role would be that of a consultant.
According to Commodore Srikant B Kesnur (retd), the director of the Maritime Warfare Centre, Tomy’s role would likely involve two aspects. “One, he would be assisting the crew on how to mitigate the hardships at sea. The second deals with loneliness and how to tackle it,” Cmdr Srikant said. Though TNIE reached out to ISRO for a comment, they were busy with the Chandrayaan-3 mission, which will see an Indian spacecraft soft land on the lunar surface today (August 23).
With this project, “Abhilash is looking to explore new vistas, as an adventurer does, both in a quest to understand the external world and to be in communion with himself,” Cmdr Srikant said.
Ramesh Menon, a long-time friend of Abhilash, too, echoed the sentiment. “He [Abhilash] is someone who aims for the stars! What better partnership for him than the ISRO,” he said.
The first crewed mission was originally planned to be launched in December 2021, but this was pushed on account of the Covid pandemic. Now, according to an ISRO source, the mission is slated for late 2024.