Draft:Ajit Krishnan

Ajit Krishnan is a Group Captain in the Indian Air Force and one of the four ISRO astronaut candidates who will fly to space as part of India's first crewed flights into space.

Air Force career
Ajit is from Chennai, Tamil Nadu. He completed his NDA course in 2002 and received the 'Sword of Honour' at the Air Force Academy.

Ajit is a test pilot with 2,900 hours of flying experience. He has flown various fighter aircraft including the Sukhoi 30, various MiG aircraft, the Jaguar combat aircraft, the Hawk trainer aircraft, the Dornier transport aircraft, and also the Antonov An-32 military transport aircraft.

Selection as an astronaut
Ajit was included in the astronaut selection process in 2019 by the Institute of Aerospace Medicine (IAM), an organization under the Indian Air Force. Later, he was shortlisted in the final four by IAM and ISRO. In 2020, He went to Russia for basic training with three other selected astronauts. Basic training was completed in 2021. He then returned to India and attended training at the Astronaut Training Facility in Bangalore.

His name as a member of the astronaut team was first officially announced in public on 27 February 2024, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the names of the astronaut team members for India's first space mission at ISRO's Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram.