On 28 December, the Union Cabinet approved the Gaganyaan project, which will cost Rs 10,000 crore. In a press conference, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that 10,000 crores would go towards putting a three-member crew in space for at least seven days.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had first announced the Gaganyaan project in his 2018 Independence Day speech. He had said that, by 2022, when India celebrates it 75th Independence Day, the space mission Gaganyaan would take “an Indian son or daughter” into space “carrying the national flag.”
For support with this ambitious mission, India has already written agreements with Russia and France.
ISRO will plan its biggest rocket launch, the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III (GSLV Mk III), to achieve the mission of sending the three-member crew into space. This project, if successful, will make India the fourth nation in the world to independently send humans into space. The rocket will launch from the Sriharikota space port in Andhra Pradesh.
The NDTV report further explains that ISRO hopes to launch the first phase within 40 months. Two unmanned flights and one human flight (where Indian technology will be used to send three people into low earth orbit) will be a part of the “demonstration phase.”
(With inputs from PTI and NDTV)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)