Gaganyaan Mission (Indian First Manned Space Craft)

 

Gaganyaan, crewed spacecraft being developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The first uncrewed test flight is planned for 2024, with the second and third uncrewed test flights in 2025. The first crewed flight is now planned for 2026. India would become the fourth nation to launch its own crewed spacecraft, after the Soviet Union (later Russia), the United States, and China.

Development on the Indian crewed spacecraft began in 2012. The LVM3 had its first flight in December 2014, during which it carried a CM mock-up on a suborbital trajectory that ended with a successful splashdown in the Bay of Bengal. Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced in his 2018 speech for Indian Independence Day that the first crewed flight in the Gaganyaan program would take place in 2022, the 75th anniversary of India’s independence.

Four astronauts, Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair, Ajit Krishnan, Angad Pratap, and Shubhanshu Shukla, all pilots in the Indian Air Force, were selected for the Gaganyaan program. The four did the first part of their training in Russia in early 2020 and the remainder at ISRO’s astronaut training facility in Bengaluru. However, the program was delayed because of the global coronavirus pandemic. Shukla is scheduled to fly to the International Space Station in early 2025 on the commercial Axiom Mission 4.

The first uncrewed test flight, G1, is planned for December 2024 and will carry Vyommitra (vyom meaning “space” and mitra meaning “friend” in Sanskrit), a humanoid robot with female features who can speak with ground controllers and read instrument panels in the spacecraft. Two more uncrewed test flights, G2 and G3, will follow in 2025. The first crewed flight, H1, will carry three astronauts who will spend up to a week in low Earth orbit. Initially planned for 2025, H1 was delayed to 2026 in October 2024.

Gaganyaan (Sanskrit: [ɡəɡənəjɑːnə],pronunciation^ⓘ, from Sanskrit: gagana, "celestial" and yāna, "craft, vehicle") is an Indian crewed orbital spacecraft intended to be the formative spacecraft of the Indian Human Spaceflight Programme.

The spacecraft is being designed to carry three people, and a planned upgraded version will be equipped with rendezvous and docking capabilities. In its maiden crewed mission, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)'s largely autonomous 5.3-metric tonne capsule will orbit the Earth at 400 km altitude for up to seven days with a two- or three-person crew on board. The first crewed mission was originally planned to be launched on ISRO's HLVM3 rocket in December 2021.^[6][7] As of November 2024, it is expected to be launched no earlier than 2026.^[8]

The Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL)-manufactured crew module underwent its first uncrewed experimental flight on 18 December 2014.^[9] As of May 2019, design of the crew module has been completed.^[10] The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) will provide support for critical human-centric systems and technologies such as space-grade food, crew healthcare, radiation measurement and protection, parachutes for the safe recovery of the crew module, and the fire suppression system.^[11]

The Gaganyaan Mission will be led by V. R. Lalithambika, the former Director of the Directorate of the Human Spaceflight Programme with ISRO Chairman S Somnath and S. Unnikrishnan Nair, Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre.^[12][13] Imtiaz Ali Khan superseded V. R. Lalithambika as the Director of the Directorate of Human Spaceflight Programme.^[14][15]