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[i]In its maiden manned mission, ISRO's largely autonomous 3-ton capsule will orbit the Earth at 248 miles (400 km) in altitude for up to seven days with a two-person crew on board, ISRO chairman G. Madhavan Nair announced Jan. 3 at the Indian Science Congress held in Shillong. The capsule will be designed to carry three people, and a planned upgraded version will be equipped with a rendezvous and docking capability, he said. ...[ISRO spokesman] Satish said the astronaut capsule would launch atop a modified version of ISRO's Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mark 2, currently under development. The GSLV Mark 2 features an indigenously developed cryogenic upper-stage engine; the Mark 1 variant currently in use has a Russian-supplied upper stage engine. The first test launch of the standard GSLV Mark 2 launcher is scheduled for this year. Satish said ISRO's human spaceflight program will benefit from assistance provided by the Russian Federal Space Agency, Roskosmos. The cooperative arrangement was sealed in an accord signed Dec. 5 by Nair and Roskosmos Director-General Anatoly Perminov during a state visit to India by Russian President Dimitri Medvedev. Under the accord, an Indian cosmonaut will fly aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft in 2013 ahead of ISRO's planned 2015 mission, Satish said.[/i]
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