Why human-rating matters as India prepares for Gaganyaan, Pg11

Key Highlights:

• Human-rating is a rigorous process to ensure space systems can safely carry humans, with NASA setting a 0.2% risk threshold for catastrophic events during ascent and descent.
• Currently, Soyuz-2 (Russia), Long March 2F (China), and Falcon 9 (SpaceX) are fully operational human-rated launch vehicles.
• ISRO is upgrading the LVM-3 rocket for the Gaganyaan mission, adding backup systems and a crew escape system to meet human-rating standards.
• Human-rating involves redundant systems, robust abort capabilities, fault tolerance, and life support, increasing costs and complexity compared to cargo missions.

Detailed Insights:

• Human-rating demands significantly lower risk tolerance than cargo missions due to the harsh conditions of space travel, requiring rockets to reach 28,000 kmph in minutes.
• NASA grants human-rating certification in the U.S., while the FAA licenses commercial launches for public safety, and CMSA and Roscosmos certify systems in China and Russia, respectively.
• The Soyuz program has a high success rate with over 150 crewed missions since 1967, and the SpaceX Falcon 9 has a 100% success rate across 20 human spaceflights.
• ISRO chose the LVM-3 for Gaganyaan due to its proven track record of seven successful flights and alignment with the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative for self-reliance.

Key Concepts Involved:

• Human-rating: Engineering and certification ensuring a space system's safety for human spaceflight.
• Redundancy: Duplication of critical systems to enhance reliability and safety.
• Crew Escape System: Mechanism to quickly remove the crew module from a failing launch vehicle.