India plans to send a humanoid robot to space.
Called Vyomitra, she is a half-humanoid robot, meaning she has a functional torso, but no legs.
During the mission, Vyomitra will have some very important tasks to do.
READ MORE! India’s historic Moon landing cost less than what it cost to film Interstellar
She will be responsible for conducting experiments and replicating human functions in space.
And she will be expected to communicate with and report back to her human team on the ground.
But most importantly, the Indian team is sending Vyomitra to test the safety and functionality of the crew module.
If the for the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is satisfied with the mission, it will then send three Indian astronauts into space.
You can watch the humanoid robot here:
Called the Gaganyaan mission, the astronauts will do a 400km (250 miles) orbit around Earth which should take only three to seven days.
During the mission, they’ll conduct a few experiments (not yet revealed) before landing back on Earth in the Indian Ocean.
The Indian space agency doesn’t exactly have a full team of astronauts training for would-be missions either.
Instead, they picked four fighter pilots from the Indian Air Force for their first-ever human space flight.
These pilots are now reportedly being trained for the mission in Russia.
India made history last week when it became the first country to ever land on the South Pole of the Lunar surface.
In doing so, it became the fourth country to reach the Moon after the US, Russia, and China.
The spacecraft, called Chandrayaan-3, landed on the Moon’s South Pole not long after Russia tried to do the same.
The Russian craft unfortunately crashed right before landing.
What makes India’s landing on the Moon even more incredible is the shoestring budget they did it on.
The Chandrayaan-3 mission cost about 6.15 billion rupees, which converts to around USD $75 million.
To put that in perspective, India landed on the moon for half of what it cost to film the movie Interstellar.
