Angad Pratap
- Born:
- July 17, 1982, Allahabad (now Prayagraj), Uttar Pradesh, India (age 42)
Who is Angad Pratap?
What is Gaganyaan?
What aircraft has Angad Pratap flown?
Where did Angad Pratap receive astronaut training?
Angad Pratap (born July 17, 1982, Allahabad (now Prayagraj), Uttar Pradesh, India) is one of four astronauts selected for India’s first crewed spaceflight program, Gaganyaan, scheduled to launch its first crewed flight in 2027. He is a test pilot in the Indian Air Force (IAF), holding the rank of group captain.
Education and IAF career
Pratap attended Springdales School in Dhaula Kuan, New Delhi, where he completed his secondary education in 2000. A 2003 alumnus of the National Defence Academy (NDA), Pratap was commissioned into the fighter stream of the Indian Air Force (IAF) on December 18, 2004.
The four Gaganyaan astronauts-designate are commissioned officers in the Indian Air Force, all serving at the rank group captain. The IAF’s officer ranks, in descending order, are:
- Air Chief Marshal
- Air Marshal
- Air Vice Marshal
- Air Commodore
- Group Captain
- Wing Commander
- Squadron Leader
- Flight Lieutenant
- Flying Officer
Pratap is an IAF flying instructor and test pilot and has logged approximately 2,000 hours of flight time on a wide array of aircraft, such as the Sukhoi Su-30 MKI, MiG-21, MiG-29, Jaguar, Hawk, Dornier, and Antonov An-32. He was promoted to the rank of wing commander on December 18, 2017, and later to group captain.
Gaganyaan mission
In 2019 Pratap was shortlisted by the Institute of Aerospace Medicine (IAM), Bengaluru, as part of the selection process for the Gaganyaan human spaceflight program. The 12 candidates who passed the initial rounds were further narrowed to a crew of 4 during an evaluation process conducted by the IAM in collaboration with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO; India’s space agency).
Pratap participated in a 14-month training program at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Russia. After returning to India in 2021, Pratap and his fellow astronauts-designate began mission-specific training at the Human Space Flight Centre in Bengaluru.
On February 27, 2024, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the four astronauts-designate (the other three being Shubhanshu Shukla, Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair, and Ajit Krishnan) at a public event held at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, where they were decorated with astronaut wings.
In public remarks, Pratap has outlined his belief that the future of space travel lies in inclusivity and a planetary perspective:
When space becomes accessible to everyone—more and more human beings sent from across the world—we will start thinking of ourselves as representatives of our planet.