Gaganyaan to be launched in 2023; two unmanned missions scheduled by ISRO in 2022

India will launch its first manned space flight under mission 'Gaganyaan' in 2023, informed Union Minister Jitendra Singh in Rajya Sabha's question hour on Thursday, December 9. Replying to a question, he also revealed that the first crewed flight will entail two unmanned launches, the first of which is scheduled to begin from the second half of 2022 followed by the second launch at the end of the same year. With the success of these flights, India will join the list of countries including the USA, Russia and China, and become the fourth country with their own Human Spaceflight mission, said the minister.

ISRO prepares to launch first Indian to space

Earlier in 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had stated that by 2022, India will send its first man or woman into a space odyssey but the plans were foiled due to the COVID pandemic. Union Min Singh, however, has assured that the preparations were now in full swing and the mission to ferry an Indian astronaut will be achieved by 2023. With more than 500 Industries involved in the project, the minister said that the purpose of Gaganyaan is to demonstrate the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) capability to send humans to low earth orbit (LEO) onboard on Indian Launch Vehicle and bring them back to earth safely.

Ahead of the first manned mission, ISRO will conduct an uncrewed launch where a spacefaring robot named "Vyommitra", developed by the agency, will be carried into space. As for the preparations to launch actual humans, an astronaut training facility is being built in Bengaluru and is already at the advanced stage of completion. In addition to this, delivery of space suits, crew seat and view ports from the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos has also begun along with specific deliveries from the CNES (French Space Agency). Detailing further about the status of the Gaganyaan programme, an official release by the Ministry of Science & Technology revealed that the designing process of all systems of Gaganyaan are complete and the activities related to development of microgravity experiments have commenced