Gaganyaan: what India's first crewed space mission will look like
Three uncrewed test flights, a robot passenger and a three-day orbit at 400 km. Here is the plan behind ISRO's human spaceflight programme.
India's Gaganyaan programme aims to send astronauts to an orbit roughly 400 km above Earth for a three-day mission, followed by a splashdown in Indian Ocean waters. Success would make India only the fourth country to fly humans to space on its own, after the Soviet Union, the United States and China.
ISRO has said the crewed flight will happen only after three uncrewed test missions succeed. The first of these is designed to carry Vyommitra, a humanoid robot that will monitor conditions inside the crew module.
Four Indian Air Force test pilots have been named as astronaut-designates: Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair, Angad Pratap, Ajit Krishnan and Shubhanshu Shukla. The programme's cost has been estimated at about Rs 9,000 crore.
Timelines have shifted several times as the agency puts safety first, with parachute and abort-system tests continuing through 2026. ISRO is also working on Chandrayaan-4, a two-launch mission meant to bring lunar soil samples back to Earth.
Source: Madhyamam / ISRO statements
