A private Indian firm is building a smart steel food container to feed India's Gaganyaan astronauts in space. (Photo: Isro)

This Indian company is reinventing a tiffin box to carry lunch for Gaganyaan astronauts

When India's astronauts fly on Gaganyaan, their meals may travel in a smart steel tiffin box fitted with sensors, built by a private Indian firm, Ananth Technologies, with the DRDO food laboratory in Mysuru. Here is how India plans to feed its first crew in space.

by · India Today

In Short

  • Private firm builds smart steel food container for Gaganyaan astronauts.
  • Sensors inside the container send food data back to Earth.
  • DFRL in Mysuru is developing the food for India’s astronauts.

When India sends its first astronauts into orbit on the Gaganyaan mission, their meals may travel in something that sounds oddly familiar. A tiffin box. But this is no ordinary lunchbox. It is a steel container fitted with sensors and electronics, and it is being designed by an Indian company.

Ananth Technologies, the Hyderabad firm that has contributed parts to India's space missions for more than two decades, is building the smart food container with the Defence Food Research Laboratory (DFRL) in Mysuru, its chairman and founder, Dr Subba Rao Pavuluri, told IndiaToday.in in an exclusive conversation at the India Space Congress in New Delhi.

A SMART STEEL BOX, NOT A LUNCHBOX

The container is made of steel and carries small sensors and electronics inside it. These sensors do something a normal lunchbox cannot. They send information back to the ground, Dr Pavuluri said, so the team on Earth can keep a close watch on the food the crew is carrying.

In a mission where the safety of the astronauts comes first, he described the food system as one of the most important parts of the journey.

The Gaganyaan Crew Module. In microgravity, even a floating crumb can damage equipment, so space food must be sealed and secured. (Photo: Isro)

The food itself is being developed by the DFRL, the defence laboratory in Mysuru that prepares meals for India's armed forces.

Ananth is working with the laboratory to build a container that will hold and protect those meals in space.

WHY FEEDING ASTRONAUTS IS SO HARD

Eating in space is far harder than it looks. In orbit, there is almost no gravity to hold things down. Scientists call this microgravity, a state where everything floats freely, including crumbs and tiny drops of liquid.

A stray crumb is not just messy. It can drift into an astronaut's eye, or float into delicate equipment and damage it.

Ananth Technologies is also building the onboard computing and navigation for India's crew capsule. (Photo: Isro)

That is why food for astronauts must be carefully sealed, secured and tracked. A steel container fitted with sensors adds a layer of safety, keeping the meals protected and monitored from launch until they are eaten in orbit.

The sensors act like a tiny health monitor for the food, sending readings to engineers on the ground.

A PRIVATE FIRM IN INDIA'S ASTRONAUT STORY

The container is only one part of Ananth's role in India's human spaceflight programme. The company is also building the onboard computing and navigation systems for the crew capsule, the electronics that help run the spacecraft and find its way.

Gaganyaan is India's first attempt to send its own astronauts into space aboard an Indian spacecraft. If the food container works as planned, a humble tiffin box, rebuilt in steel and wired with sensors, will help keep India's first astronauts fed and safe far above the Earth.

- Ends