Rakesh Sharma

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Rakesh Sharma

Indian military pilot and cosmonaut

Written by Erik Gregersen

Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Sep 25, 2024 • Article History

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Born:: Jan. 13, 1949, Patiala, Punjab state, India (age 75)

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Rakesh Sharma (born Jan. 13, 1949, Patiala, Punjab state, India) is an Indian military pilot and cosmonaut, the first Indian citizen in space.

In 1970 Sharma joined the Indian Air Force as a pilot. He flew 21 combat missions in a MiG-21 in the Bangladesh war of 1971. In 1982 he was selected as a cosmonaut for a joint Soviet-Indian spaceflight. On April 3, 1984, he flew on board Soyuz T-11 with two Soviet cosmonauts, commander Yury Malyshev and flight engineer Gennady Strekalov, to the space station Salyut 7. There Sharma performed experiments that included photography of India from space and exercises to study the effects of yoga on the body during weightlessness. The mission lasted nearly eight days, and Sharma and his crewmates landed in Kazakhstan on April 11. In 1987 he joined the Indian company Hindustan Aeronautics as its chief test pilot. He left Hindustan Aeronautics in 2001 and became chairman of the board of Automated Workflow, a process-management company based in Bangalore (Bengaluru).

Erik Gregersen