Gaganyaan-4 (from Sanskrit: gagana, "celestial" and yāna, "craft, vehicle") will be the first crewed test flight of the Gaganyaan programme, with launch planned for 2026.
Mission
The mission is planned to demonstrate human spaceflight capability by sending a crew to an orbit of 400 km of altitude[1][2][3] for 7 days.[4] Reporting in January 2020 for the Hindustan Times,[5] Anonna Dutt quotes K. Sivan, then chairman of ISRO, as saying,
We are designing the mission for three people to go to low earth orbit for seven days. However, whether we send two people or one person and whether they spend seven days in the orbit or one will be decided [after the] unmanned flights.
In October 2023, it was announced that the first crewed flight would take place after three uncrewed missions of the human-rated HLVM3.[6] The launch is planned for 2026[7] with the capsule coming down in the Indian Ocean.[8]
The Gaganyan programme astronauts, Prasanth Nair, Angad Pratap, Ajit Krishnan and Shubhanshu Shukla, were announced on 27 February 2024.[11] Those selected for the first spaceflight will be from this pool of qualified astronauts, and one of them will fly to the ISS in 2024.[12] Is considered that one or two crewmembers will take part of this mission.[3]
Gaganyaan ([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 ton 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.[13][14] As of November 2024, it is expected to be launched no earlier than 2026.[15]
Before the Gaganyaan mission announcement in August 2018, human spaceflight was not a priority for ISRO, but it had been working on related technologies since 2007,[32] and it performed a Crew Module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment[33] and a Pad Abort Test for the mission.[34][35] In December 2018, the government approved a further ₹100 billion (US$1.5 billion) for a 7-days crewed flight of 2–3 astronauts.[36][37][38][39]
If completed successfully, India will become the fourth nation to conduct independent human spaceflight after the Soviet Union/Russia, United States, and China. After conducting the first crewed spaceflights, the agency intends to start a space station programme, crewed lunar landings, and crewed interplanetary missions in the long term.[40][41]
International collaboration
ISRO, the Department of Space and the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Center (IN-SPACe), together with Voyager Space, agreed to a memorandum of understanding to explore use of Gaganyaan for crew transportation to Voyager's planned Starlab space station.[42]
Gaganyaan-5
Gaganyaan-5 (from Sanskrit: gagana, "celestial" and yāna, "craft, vehicle") will be the second crewed test flight of the Gaganyaan programme, with launch planned in 2026.[43][44][45]
^ISRO changed the name of GSLV Mk3 to LVM3 after the successful launch of LVM3-M2 mission. The rename was done to remove any ambiguity on the ability of the vehicle to put payloads in a particular orbit.[19][18]