ISRO directed startups to build local tech for Gaganyaan mission

India’s space agency will tap startups to develop food and medicines for astronauts, better tools to access machines in a spacecraft and green engines for its maiden humanspace flight Gaganyaan-1.

Amid lockdown, ISRO has identified a set of 17 technologies that to develop locally at lower costs for use in its Gaganyaan missions.

ISRO has opened up its facilities to companies like Larson & Toubro and HAL to build its polar satellite launch vehicle (PSLV).

The startups will develop food and medicines for astronauts, better tools to access machines in a spacecraft, green engines, life support systems including a spacesuit, anti-radiation and thermal protection technologies for spacecraft which will bring the astronauts back to earth safely, and inflatable habitats that are required for the mission.

ISRO will share its intellectual property for the technologies, except for those that are very strategic, to any private entity that develops them.