Manned space mission in Dec 2021: ISRO

Bengaluru, January 11

India’s maiden manned space mission ‘Gaganyaan’ is set for December 2021 launch and is likely to include a woman astronaut, Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman K Sivan said Friday.

Gearing up for the mission, announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the ISRO has set up a new centre to facilitate the manned voyage involving a three-member crew, he said. “We have put everything in place. Gaganyaan has highest priority for 2019. We are planning to have first unmanned mission in December 2020 and second for July 2021. Once we complete this, the manned mission will happen in December 2021. The entire team is geared up to achieve this target,” Sivan said.

The Union Cabinet gave its nod for the Rs 9,023-cr programme recently, he said, briefing reporters about the achievements of the city-headquartered ISRO in the previous year and the future programmes. In his Independence Day address last year, Modi had announced that the mission would be undertaken by 2022 using ISRO’s own capabilities.

To a question, the ISRO chief said, “We want women astronauts also should be there. That is our aim. In my opinion, we have to train both men and women. The PM has told brother and sister (boys and girls). We will be happy to do that... but it involves training and other things.” He said a major expansion was in the offing with the launch of Gaganyaan.

“There are two aspects to Gaganyaan — engineering and human. This is a major expansion because it is not only launching human into the space but a space station. Human programme is a major turning point,” Sivan said.

He said the objective of the mission is to carry a three-member crew to low earth orbit and return them safely to a predefined destination on earth. Sivan said ISRO had launched the Human Space Flight Centre to take care of all the things related to the manned space programme. 

The centre will have senior scientist Unnikrishnan Nair as its director while the project director would be Dr R Hutton, the ISRO chief said. He said the crew members for Gaganyaan would be from India and include one from the Indian Air Force. On successful completion of the mission, India would become the fourth nation in the world to achieve the feat.

India plans to call its astronauts "Vyomanauts" (Vyom in Sanskrit means space). — PTI

Chandrayaan-2 in mid-April

The launch of India’s second Moon mission, Chandrayaan-2, is planned for the middle of April this year, ISRO chairman K Sivan said on Friday. He said the space agency had earlier planned to launch the spacecraft between January and February but it could not materialise because certain tests could not be conducted.