New Delhi, April 10 (IANS). Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh on Friday congratulated the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) on the successful completion of the second Integrated Air Drift Test (IADT-02) of Gaganyaan, India’s first manned space mission. Gaganyaan mission is scheduled to launch in 2027. He described this achievement as an important milestone in the preparations for the ambitious mission.
“Congratulations to ISRO for the successful completion of the second integrated air evacuation test for Gaganyaan, India’s first manned space flight, scheduled next year,” Singh wrote on social media platform X.
He further said, “The second Integrated Air Deposition Test (IADT-02) was successfully conducted at Satish Dhawan Space Station, Sriharikota. This is an important milestone in the preparations for the Gaganyaan mission.”
India’s first manned space mission will be launched from Sriharikota in 2027. The mission has been delayed several times due to technical complexity, but India is developing the capability indigenously. It is noteworthy that such important technologies related to space missions are kept confidential and no country shares them.
The government has allocated approximately Rs 10,000 crore for the Gaganyaan programme. The mission is now in its final stages and the first manned flight is expected to take place in the first quarter of 2027.
Earlier, on April 8, ISRO Chairman V. Narayanan had said that all preparations for the unmanned Gaganyaan mission are going smoothly. Speaking at the inaugural session of the Second International Conference on Smart Spacecraft Mission Operations, he said, “We are meeting just ahead of the first unmanned Gaganyaan mission. This is no ordinary mission, but an important mission for India. There will be three unmanned missions before the final manned launch. All activities for the first mission are progressing well, although challenges still remain.”
In this conference, former ISRO chief A.S. Kiran Kumar and S. Along with Somnath, ISRO center directors, students and representatives of space startups also participated.
Meanwhile, India’s human spaceflight preparations made further progress on April 4, when four selected astronauts launched a high-altitude experiment under “Mission MITRA” (Mapping of Interoperable Characteristics and Reliability Assessment) in Ladakh. The objective of this program is to evaluate human performance in extreme environments.
The astronauts, including Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla and P. Balakrishnan Nair, reached Leh earlier this week for acclimatization. The mission is supported by a multidisciplinary team of scientists, engineers, medical experts and psychologists, marking another important step in India’s journey towards human space exploration.
–IANS
SAK/PM
