As announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his Independence Day address, India’s first Indian human mission will be launched by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) by 2022. This was stated by the Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh while addressing a press conference here today.
The ISRO Chairman, Dr. K. Sivan said that ISRO has the capabilities to accomplish this task by the given timeframe. He said that this is a huge responsibility and a challenging task for ISRO, but it will succeed. The programme will make India the fourth nation in the world to launch a Human Spaceflight Mission. So far, only the USA, Russia and China have launched human spaceflight missions.
It may be recalled that the Prime Minister during his Independence Day address had announced `Gaganyaan — India's maiden human spaceflight programme'. He had declared that 'a son or a daughter of India will go to Space from Indian soil by an Indian vehicle by 2022 (75th year of Indian independence) or sooner'. This is the most ambitious space programme undertaken by ISRO till date and is essential as it will give a big boost to the Science and Technology development within the country, said Dr Sivan. This will also inspire the youth of the country to take up bigger challenges and enhance the prestige of the country.
ISRO has developed some critical technologies like re-entry mission capability, crew escape system, crew module configuration, thermal protection system, deceleration and floatation system, sub-systems of life support system etc. required for this programme. Some of these technologies have been demonstrated successfully through the Space Capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE-2007), Crew module Atmospheric Reentry Experiment (CARE-2014) and Pad Abort Test (2018). These technologies will enable ISRO in accomplishing the programme objectives in a short span of 4 years.
