Rakesh Sharma – Biography

Astronaut Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma made India proud and had his name etched in history when he spent seven days, 21 hours, and 40 minutes in space on board the Salyut 7 space station. He was the first Indian to travel to space. This achievement came with a joint Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Soviet Interkosmos space programme. In a joint (the Soviet Union and India) TV news conference then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi asked Rakesh Sharma how India looked from space (Upar se Bharat Kaisa dikhta hai aapko?), and he proudly replied ‘Sare jahan se accha‘ (Better than the rest of the world.) 

Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian to receive the Hero of the Soviet Union award. He even took Indian food to space with the help of Mysore’s Defence Food Research Lab. He reported that he carried Aloo Choley, Suji Halwa, and Pulao, which he shared with his two other cosmonauts.

Rakesh Sharma joined the National Defence Academy (NDA) in July 1966 as an air force freshman, and in 1970 he got commissioned as a pilot in the Indian Air Force (IAF) and became a fighter pilot. During the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, he flew the MiG-21 and completed 21 combat missions. He joined Hindustan Aeronautics in 1987 as its chief test pilot. In 2001, he moved out to take on the chairman of the board of Automated Workflow (a Bengaluru-based process-management company). 

It was in 1982 that Rakesh Sharma got chosen to become part of a joint Soviet-Indian spaceflight as a cosmonaut. On 3rd April 1984, he and two cosmonauts from the Soviet Union (flight engineer Gennady Strekalov and commander Yury Malyshev) flew on board Soyuz T-11 to the space station Salyut 7. At the space station, Rakesh Sharma conducted various exercises and experiments, such as yoga’s effects on the human body in weightlessness and taking photographs of India from outer space. The three crew members returned after nearly 8 days and touched down on 11th April in Kazakhstan.