India is planning to send its first manned mission into space in December 2021 as part of the Gaganyaan (Orbital Vehicle) spaceflight program, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) chairman Kailasavadivoo Sivan said on Friday
NEW DELHI (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th January, 2019) India is planning to send its first manned mission into space in December 2021 as part of the Gaganyaan (Orbital Vehicle) spaceflight program, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) chairman Kailasavadivoo Sivan said on Friday."Gaganyaan has highest priority for 2019. We are planning to have first unmanned mission in December 2020 and second for July 2021. Once we complete this, the manned mission will happen in December 2021," Sivan said as quoted by the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency.
The objective of the mission is to take a three-member crew, including women astronauts, to low earth orbit and return them safely to Earth, he added.
"We want women astronauts ... there. That is our aim. In my opinion, we have to train both men and women ... We will be happy to do that... but it involves training and other things," Sivan stressed.
Plans for a manned mission were first announced by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in August last year. The Indian government said it expected the space mission to cost less that 100 billion rupees ($1.4 billion).
