India's First Crewed Gaganyaan Launch Slips To 2026

MILAN—India now expects the first crewed flight of its Gaganyaan spacecraft to launch in 2026, following a trio of uncrewed flight tests slated to begin next year.

Ahead of Gaganyaan missions, two Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) astronauts are in training at NASA’s Johnson Space Center for a flight to the International Space Station, to be conducted under a contract with Houston-based Axiom Space. ISRO astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla is expected to fly as the pilot onboard the Axiom-4 mission, planned for 2025, while Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair is his backup.

“We are developing most of the technologies for human spaceflight in India, but it is a painfully slow process,” ISRO Chairman S. Somanath said at the 75th International Astronautical Congress here in Milan.

ISRO intends to parlay its human space program into building a space station in low Earth orbit, with the first module launch planned for 2028, and a crewed landing on the Moon targeted for 2040.

In parallel, India is following its successful 2023 Chandrayaan-3 lunar south pole lander with the Chandrayaan-4 mission to return samples from the Moon.

ISRO also is developing an orbiter to study the atmosphere of Venus and is considering adding a deployable probe to penetrate into the planet’s thick clouds. “Going down to the surface is really challenging, and we are looking at how we can do that,” Somanath said.

India’s space program includes Earth-observation and other spacecraft, endeavors supported by the country’s growing commercial space industry. “We have almost 200 startups and companies that are building small rockets and satellites, as well as deploying applications,” Somanath said. “We look at space manufacturing as the key domain we would like to develop in India in due course of time.”