India's human space flight may face slight delay says ISRO chief

Bengaluru, October 13: Owing to Covid-19's impact on India's human space flight mission Gaganyaan operations, ISRO's chief K Sivan said on Monday that India's first human space flight which was initially scheduled in August 2022 may face 'Slight Delay' due to Covid-19.

 

He said, India's first human space flight was targeted in August 2022, but owing to Covid-19's impact on the operations, there will be a slight slip in meeting the mission's target date while answering a query at the plenary session of the International Astronautical Congress 2020.

 

Sivan said the Gaganyaan mission has advanced well and the country is taking the help of other space-faring nations like Russia for training the astronauts and some other critical aspects, France in space medical area and is also approaching US space agency NASA.

 

Gaganyaan is an Indian crewed orbital spacecraft that is intended to send 3 astronauts to space for a minimum of seven days by 2022, as part of the Indian Human Spaceflight Programme. It was announced by the prime minister during his Independence day speech on 15 August 2018.

 

On resuming rocket launches, he said some missions were delayed as officials were unable to travel to the rocket port from different cities.

 

Taking about ISRO's future plans, Sivan said ISRO is planning to launch its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle C49 (PSLV C49) during the first week of November. The PSLV C49 rocket will fly with RISAT-2BR2 as the main passenger and about several other third-party satellites for a fee.

 

According to Sivan, international cooperation is the hallmark of India's space activities. The country has signed about 250 collaboration agreements with about 59 nations. He said India's international collaborations are a mix-some for getting advanced technologies and some are for helping other space-faring nations and pointed out training 60 persons from 23 nations in building nano-satellites.