New Delhi: Union Minister Jitendra Singh, Minister of State in the Department of Space and Department of Atomic Energy on Tuesday said, “The government had planned the human space flight for 2022, the year of India’s 75th anniversary of Independence, but the schedule went awry on account of the COVID-19 pandemic. India’s maiden human space-flight mission Gaganyaan is expected to be launched in 2024,”
“The COVID-19 pandemic took a toll on the training of astronauts in Russia as well as India,” Singh said, adding the first test flight of the Gaganyaan mission is scheduled to take place later this year. The first test flight will be followed by sending a female-looking spacefaring humanoid robot — Vyom Mitra — into outer space likely next year, Singh said.
The Indian Air Force had identified four fighter pilots as the potential crew for the human space flight mission. The potential crew had undergone basic training in Russia. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will send at least two astronauts into a low earth orbit in 2024 after assessing the outcome of the two orbital test flights, Singh said.
ISRO also plans to launch the Chandrayaan-3 mission to the moon sometime next year. Officials said there were two launch windows for the moon mission next year in February and July. Chandrayaan-3 is a successor to the Chandrayaan-2 mission that crash-landed on the lunar surface.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the Gaganyaan mission in his Independence Day address in 2018 at a cost of Rs 10,000 crore.
(Vinayak)
