India to launch its first human spaceflight in 2022

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced on 72nd Independence Day of India that by 2022 an astronaut will go on a space mission on a home-developed rocket making India the 4th country in the world to achieve this feat.

Only US, China, and Russia have been able to do a crewed space mission until now. India’s space mission is expected to cost 1.28 billion dollars. According to NDTV, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has decided to take this challenge head-on and plans to send three Indian astronauts to space in the next 40 months.

“When India celebrates 75th year of Independence in 2022, and if possible even before, an Indian son or daughter will undertake a manned space mission on board ‘Gaganyaan’ carrying the national flag,” said the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi.

India has been dreaming about its own crewed space mission for over a decade. Now that the Prime Minister has announced his ambitions as well, it seems like the space mission will indeed soon become a reality for India.

Human spaceflight has remained interesting and inspiring phenomenon for the longest time. Human Space missions are either controlled remotely or directly in the spacecraft. As of now, there are no details on how and when the mission will be carried out but a deadline has been given publicly by Modi and it seems that ISRO will be working hard to beat that deadline by a huge margin.