Gaganyaan to be launched by end of this year, says ISRO chief

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairman S Somanath said that efforts are being made to lauch India's first human space flight program, Gaganyaan by the end of this year.

"Gaganyaan is ready for launch, we are trying to launch it by the end of this year," Somanath said as he visited the Space Expo in Karnataka's Bengaluru on Friday.

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the building of the first unit of the Bharatiya Anatriksh Station by extending the scope of the Gaganyaan program.

The Gaganyaan Programme approved in December 2018 envisages undertaking human spaceflight to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and laying the foundation of technologies needed for an Indian human space exploration programme in the long run.

On Chandrayaan 4, Somanath said that ISRO has completed the engineering for the mission.

"Cabinet has just announced its (Chandrayaan 4) approval, so there will be updates in the next few months, right now we have completed the engineering, we got the approval from the Cabinet, it has to go through many layers of approvals. Chandrayaan 3 was only to go there and land softly so now to come back from the moon is equal to another one more mission. So the overall size of the satellite becomes almost double. The number of modules becomes 5 and we don't have launch capability, so we have to do with two launches. So that way, it is much more complex," the ISRO chief said while speaking to ANI.

On September 18, the Cabinet approved the mission to the moon, named Chandrayaan-4 to develop and demonstrate the technologies to return to Earth after successfully landing on the Moon and also collect moon samples and analyse them on Earth.

The Chandrayaan-4 mission will achieve the foundational technologies and capabilities eventually for an Indian landing on the moon (planned by the year 2040) and return safely back to Earth. Major technologies that are required for docking/undocking, landing, safe return to earth and also accomplish lunar sample collection and analysis would be demonstrated.

The central government has outlined an expanded vision for the Indian space programme during the Amrit Kaal that envisages an Indian Space Station (Bharatiya Antariksh Station) by 2035 and an Indian Landing on the Moon by 2040.