In I-Day Speech, Prime Minister Modi Announces India’s First Human Spaceflight By 2022

Addressing the nation on the Independence Day from the ramparts of the Red Fort, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced that India will launch a crewed space mission by 2022 to mark 75 years of independence.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has been preparing for a crewed mission for the past few years, although it had not been officially sanctioned by the government until now. Moving a step closer to human space flight in July, ISRO had successfully tested the crew escape system designed to quickly pull out the crew to a safe distance in case of a launch abort.

In June 2017, the organisation had tested GSLV Mark-III, India's first launch vehicle capable of putting humans in space.

The vehicle, which uses India’s fully indigenous cryogenic engine, “is going to be at the frontier for ISRO. It can be used for human flight as well," senior ISRO scientist and Mark-III project director G Ayyappan had said back then.

ISRO had also conducted demonstration of the atmospheric re-entry flight developed for the Human Spaceflight Programme. Demonstration was carried out successfully as part of the experimental flight in December 2014. It is currently developing technology to facilitate transfer of material between two vehicles in the space, called spacecraft docking and berthing in technical terms.

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