India’s maiden human space flight – the H-1 mission – is to be launched in the fourth quarter of 2024, India’s Minister of State for Space, Science, Technology, Earth Sciences and Atomic Energy, Dr. Jitendra Singh said. India’s overall human space flight programme is known as Gaganyaan. This is a major achievement made possible under Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership.
“In view of the paramount importance of crew safety, two test vehicle missions without crew are planned before the H-1 mission to demonstrate the performance of the crew escape system and parachute-based deceleration system for different flight conditions,” Singh said.
“The first uncrewed mission, named G-1, is targeted to be launched in the last quarter of 2023 followed by the second uncrewed G-2 mission in the second quarter of 2024, before the final human space flight H-1 mission in the fourth quarter of 2024,” he added.
G-1 aims to validate a human-rated launch vehicle, the orbital module propulsion system, the mission management system, the communication system, and recovery operations. The mission will carry a humanoid payload. In Bangalore, the astronauts who will perform the human space flight mission are undergoing training at the moment.