Mumbai, Oct 21 (The Street Press) – On Saturday, India achieved an important milestone in its exciting crewed space mission, Gaganyaan. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) shared this news just hours after temporarily pausing the scheduled launch.
ISRO, on social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), announced that they’ve identified and resolved the reason for the launch delay. The Crew Escape System worked as planned, marking a successful start for Mission Gaganyaan. However, the agency didn’t provide details about the specific cause of the delay.
The launch was originally scheduled for 8 a.m. but faced initial delays. It eventually took place at 10 a.m., as confirmed by ISRO.
The Gaganyaan mission’s primary objective is to create a space capsule suitable for human habitation. This capsule will carry a three-person crew into an orbit 400 km (250 miles) above Earth, where they will spend three days before safely landing in the Indian Ocean.
ISRO has expressed its intention to explore possibilities for maintaining a continuous human presence in space once the Gaganyaan mission is successfully accomplished.
A budget of approximately 90 billion Indian rupees, equivalent to $1 billion (at an exchange rate of $1 = 83.1500 Indian rupees), has been earmarked for the Gaganyaan mission. This mission comes after ISRO’s significant achievement in successfully landing the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft on the lunar south pole.
Although no specific launch schedule has been officially announced, it is anticipated that the Gaganyaan mission will take off from India’s primary spaceport in Sriharikota before the year 2024.
