In April 1970, a sudden oxygen tank blast damaged NASA's Apollo 13 spacecraft while it was heading towards the moon. Three astronauts were stuck in deep space with almost no power, failing systems, and very limited resources. What saved them was not luck. It was the calm and clever problem-solving done by a team sitting far away on earth. Engineers quickly designed a temporary carbon dioxide filter using whatever materials were available inside the spacecraft. They also calculated a safe route to bring the astronauts home, guiding them step by step until they landed safely. This rescue remains one of the greatest moments in space history, and it happened because of the ground team.
When India sends its own astronauts to space under the Gaganyaan mission, all eyes will be on the brave crew members. But away from the cameras, another equally important team will silently decide whether the mission becomes a success or a failure. This is the ground support team, and for the first time, ISRO has started preparing them properly.
At a time when India prepares for its first human spaceflight mission, Gaganyaan, ISRO’s Mission Mitra has opened an important conversation about how nations prepare humans for space. Human spaceflight is never only about rockets, capsules, or launch vehicles. It is equally about testing the limits of the human body, the mind under pressure, crew teamwork, and mission control responses when conditions become uncertain. That is why every major space power has created difficult earth-based simulations before sending astronauts into orbit or beyond.
What is Mission Mitra?
To train and select this hidden team, ISRO has launched a special programme called Mission Mitra, which stands for Mapping of Interoperable Traits and Reliability Assessment. It is being carried out with a private company named Protoplanet, and it is the first-of-its-kind exercise in India.
The training was held at Likir, a remote village in Ladakh, at a height of nearly 4,000 metres. Temperatures drop to minus 20 degrees Celsius, oxygen levels are low, and the area is completely cut off from normal life. These tough conditions are similar to what astronauts may face in space, or even on the moon and mars in the future. This makes Ladakh a perfect natural laboratory for space training.
Why does the ground team matter?
“Human spaceflight is not only about rockets and astronauts. It is also about taking the right decisions under heavy pressure. Astronaut Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla explained that a large team on the ground always communicates with astronauts, understands their problems, and works to solve them quickly. Recently, during NASA's Artemis II mission, the ground team fixed a serious issue with the space toilet that got blocked just hours after launch. A small problem like this, if not solved in time, could have affected the entire mission. So the ground team handles everything, from small daily issues to life-threatening emergencies,” explained space analyst Girish Linganna.
Teamwork is the real magic
During Mission Mitra, 12 participants were divided into two teams led by astronauts. They worked for four tough days in freezing conditions, handling limited supplies, practising emergencies, and complex tasks. One interesting activity was like a spacewalk, where one person performed an outside task while another guided them from inside using very limited communication tools.
“What makes Mission Mitra significant is that India is joining a tradition followed by all major human spaceflight nations. Before any country places humans in space, it first tries to recreate aspects of space stress on earth. These are called analog missions. They may simulate isolation, weightlessness, hostile terrain, pressure changes, psychological stress, or technical emergencies,” pointed out Srimathy Kesan, founder and CEO of SpaceKidz India Limited.
ISRO found something very important. When teams were given strict step-by-step instructions, confusion increased, and communication became messy. But when teams were given the freedom to create their own methods, they worked more smoothly and efficiently. As Anurag Sinha, group director at ISRO's Human Space Flight Centre, said, human behaviour changes very quickly in extreme conditions, and humans are the most sensitive part of any space mission.
Mind matters as much as body
“Mission Mitra was not just about physical strength. Mental fitness was given equal importance. Each participant had private one-on-one sessions of 10 to 15 minutes with a psychologist. A doctor from the Institute of Aerospace Medicine was also present throughout. Regular health checks, mental evaluations, and safety monitoring were done continuously. Before the main exercise, the team spent six days adjusting to the high-altitude environment so that nobody faced sudden health problems,” said Linganna.
Astronaut Air Commodore P. Balakrishnan Nair said that working together under stress was the biggest challenge. People from different backgrounds had to quickly adjust to each other while handling heavy workloads. But strong systems and proper teamwork helped them succeed.
Why ISRO is playing catch-up
Unlike NASA, which has decades of experience in human spaceflight, ISRO is building its system from scratch. Astronaut training began earlier, but ground team preparation started only now. Mission Mitra marks a big change in this approach. The goal is to build clear rules for choosing the right people who can think quickly, stay calm, and take correct decisions in tough situations. Mission Mitra is only the beginning. ISRO will now study the results, improve its selection process, and conduct similar exercises in different environments in the coming years.
Global scenario
Globally, the scenario is nothing different, as NASA built one of the most sophisticated astronaut preparation systems in history. “American astronauts trained through habitat confinement programmes, underwater neutral buoyancy labs for spacewalk simulation, altitude chambers, centrifuges, desert geology expeditions, cockpit simulators, and integrated mission rehearsals. NASA’s approach became highly system-driven, combining medicine, engineering, psychology, and repeated simulations before every mission,”said Kesan.
Russia and the earlier Soviet Union followed a more survival-oriented model. Cosmonauts trained in forests, snowfields, water landings, deserts, centrifuges, parachute systems, and confined spacecraft mock-ups. Because many early Soviet capsules landed in unpredictable remote zones, survival recovery was critical.
China developed a modern blended system combining underwater training, spacecraft simulators, cave analogue missions, desert drills, and direct long-duration experience aboard the Tiangong space station. China moved rapidly from its first human launch to sustained orbital operations by building a complete astronaut ecosystem.
The European Space Agency runs cave exploration analogues where astronauts operate underground in darkness and isolation, simulating exploration uncertainty similar to lunar or planetary missions.
“Compared with these programmes, Mission Mitra is impressive but also early-stage. It is innovative because it uses Indian geography rather than depending entirely on expensive artificial facilities. Ladakh offers natural hypoxia and environmental hardship at a lower cost. It is also uniquely focused on interoperability, meaning how astronauts, doctors, engineers, and controllers function together as one mission system. This is mature thinking,” said Kesan.
Unlike NASA or China, India does not yet have decades of repeated crewed missions, large-scale astronaut infrastructure, or long-duration in-orbit operational heritage. Mission Mitra is therefore best seen as a foundation, not a finished ecosystem.