Meet Man Who Ensured Shubhanshu Shukla Will Have 'Aam Ras', 'Halwa' In Space

Ready-to-eat mango nectar, mung dal halwa and gajar ka halwa line Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla's backpack -- or the space equivalent -- as cultural ambassadors of India during his 15-day voyage to the International Space Station. These nifty 100-gm packs have been prepared by the DIBT -  Defence Institute of Bio-Defence Technologies, part of Indian Space Research Organisation or ISRO.

These are "specially designed to meet the space food challenges," Dr R Kumar, the chief of DBT, told NDTV in an exclusive interview. "Critically, these foods are without any preservatives, commercially sterile and can be stored for more than 12 months in room temperature," he said.

Asked if the dishes were chosen by the 39-year-old Air Force pilot-turned astronaut, Mr Kumar said, "These products are part of the our proposed Gaganyaan missions. So based on the list of products we provided to ISRO, they have selected these three products and then we worked on making all the requirements following the NASA protocols".

Asked if there is any special processing required to make the food space-worthy, Mr Kumar said these products are processed, packed in the thermally processed multilayer packaging material. These also undergo "all the packaging integrity test and provides the adequate texture and it can be consumed directly from the package".

The exotic fare is just meant as a delicacy though, that Group Captain Shukla is expected to share with the crew of Axiom and that of the International Space Station of ISS.

Underscoring these were his favourite foods at a press conference ahead of the lift-off, Group Captain Shukla had told reporters, "There will be plenty of food in space, but I will carry mango nectar, gajar (carrot) ka halwa, and moong dal halwa" to share it with fellow astronauts aboard the ISS. 

He is carrying five packets of each item, he has said. 

The everyday nutritional requirement of astronauts is taken care of by the US space agency NASA, which is a collaborator. 

At noon today, Group Captain Shukla became the second Indian to travel to space on the Axiom-4 mission along with three other colleagues.

The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft flying on a Falcon-9 rocket blasted its way through the skies from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida -- the spot from where Neil Armstrong set off for the moon in 1969. 

His journey comes more than 40 years after Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma's space soujourn.

Over the next 15 days, Group Captain Shukla is set to conduct exclusive food and nutrition-related experiments onboard the ISS. His experiments will examine the impact of microgravity and space radiation on edible microalgae - a high-potential, nutrient-rich food source.

He would also expose six types of crop seeds to microgravity conditions in space, which will later be cultivated on Earth to study genetic changes, microbial load, and nutritional value. The experiment is crucial for decoding the potential of future space farming.